Bus rides are always either really good or really bad.

They’re really good when I find a window seat. That’s when I can tune out completely, lose myself in my music, and become totally oblivious to anything going on around me. I get to watch everything pass by and drift in and out of my thoughts. It’s when I get the most thinking done during the day (even more than in the shower).

They’re really bad when I can’t find a seat and I’m left standing up. I keep my music low so that I can hear any announcements by the bus driver, or people trying to get by. I’m always on guard about where I should be moving or when a seat might become available. And music on a low volume isn’t really worth listening to.

One of the reasons why I haven’t bought a car is because I’d lose all my thinking time. Every day I can reflect for an hour going to work and an hour coming back when I’m on the bus. If I was in a car, I’d be too busy paying attention to the road, to bad drivers, to traffic lights, to pedestrians. I wouldn’t be able to think, and I’d probably write a lot less.

Some days, when I’m coming close to my stop, I wish that the bus would just keep going, just keep driving, and never stop. I’d ride it from morning to night, listening to my music, just enjoying the feeling of going somewhere and nowhere at the same time.

Thinking about nothing and everything.

Long Weekend.

Oh Yes.

I had a spot reserved on a campsite at Bon Echo for the three days, but opted out to work on a few small projects and errands, and take it easy. I haven’t had a weekend to myself in too long.

The sunset on Saturday night, before we pulled out of the driveway. A great weekend.

A little while ago, John informed me that he sent me a package and that I should be expecting something to arrive. I wasn’t home when it came, so it was sent to the nearest, “most convenient” mail hub, further south and downtown, which was a little out of the way, really.

A few days later, I decided to make a trip downtown to retrieve this package. There was a post-work session before I headed out, and I was peaking by the time I got to the bus stop. Admittedly, I was a little excited, because gift-giving is completely out of John’s nature. What could he possibly have sent me? I wanted to find out myself so I never asked him the details.

It rained the entire day, but the precipitation stopped by the time I was outside. The sun was still out, and turned the sky a hazy purplish-red, almost as if the entire world had been through an apocalypse, save one Canadian city. The pavement was still wet and buildings were streaking with their dark colours stretching towards the ground. I started seeing geometry, shapes, lines patterns, movement matching up as I passed. Everything turned into puzzle pieces, aligning themselves before me.

And on the way back, I sat on the bus with my package next to me, unopened, anxious to get home.

The exam I wrote today may possibly be the last one of my university career. I don’t plan on going back to school any time in the future. It was both the most and least satisfying exam I’ve ever written. I’m positive that I failed, so it’s sort of a sour note to end on, but I’m also ecstatic to be out of school. I approached my final computer science exam written last year with hesitation. The entire tech sector was suffering at the time, development jobs were already scarce, and I was about to be thrown into limbo. Now that I’m done, and nothing follows me home, I’ll have time to work on a few extra projects I haven’t finished yet. That also means that I can hang out with Aaron and Trolley more, or go home to visit Darren and John on the long weekends. As for Pat, I’ve learned to let him arrange the subsequent meeting because he’s always busier than I am.

Today, I left the exam two hours early, after throwing everything I knew on the page. I stepped out into the refreshing spring weather, when it’s between a brisk fall day and a summer night.