Fail?

When is giving up failure? I've been struggling for years to complete the goal of getting a college degree. I've changed majors a whole bunch of times. I don't know what I want to do when I grow up yet. I don't really have a career in mind. I have dreams of traveling around the U.S. and writing about the people and culture I find there. So, I put together this program in American Studies at GMU. But, it is going to take a really time to finish. The limited time that I have to devote to classes and the limited way in which the courses I've picked out come up in the schedule is really frustrating me. This semester I'm taking a class that I'm just not prepared for...and I'm beginning to see my strengths and weakness in a blaring overhead flurescent light. I'm great at class discussion. I'm intuitive. I see and feel literature in a very romantic way. However, when it comes to analysing it, I'm lost. I can't look at a book that way until I am sitting in class with a bunch of other people and they are pointing things out...that's when I can notice things that they haven't and contribute. But I wouldn't have seen those things at all, if it was just me and the book. So, I'm sitting here now, wondering, should I just realize that this is a waste of time and energy or should I take the challenges and keep going. I am learning. But I'm not feeling like it's going to worth it in the end. Let's face facts here. I'm an adult. Have been for a while now. I work in a job. I write for fun. It isn't going to be a career for me. This program I've designed is full of interesting classes. But at the end of the several years of frustration that it is going to take to complete it, am I going to be better off? Will it open any doors? Or will I just be an adult, working a job, with a degree in something entirely unrelated? Do I take my innocent way of reading and make it mean? Do I sacrifice my freedom and my time for my love of learning? And maybe my love of learning is for a different kind of learning...a more independent kind of learning...born of experience, interest, curiosity, and adventure. What oh what, shall I do?

another actual napkin gem

sometimes the sweetest memories
come to me unexpected
as though they were floating in the breeze all this time
all I needed to do was run into them
a kiss from the wind
a smile where there was none before
borne on the air
to come back to me on a whim

Snow

Going through the motions
soul all locked away
hidden deep in dark cavern
i make believe the snow cannot chill it
each breath is death
heart racing
emotions in turmoil
frightened now
then dancing crazy on the brink
of what
scattered thoughts
incoherent
soul straining on chains
pressure inside
running sideways
tripping
falling
steady now
darkness swallows light
wake in fright
to snow again

copyright 1995, all rights reserved

While looking for something else I found this bar napkin...it's not that good...but I kinda like the sentiment.....

What I hate in the world,
let me take and let me make,
just another I love in the world,
let me take the pain and liken it to rain,
that without it the world cannot grow,
let me replace pain with perspective and
an honest interpretation of joy