Roll down your windows!

Early Application essays are due on Wednesday, and I am glad I didn't do Early. I was pretty set on applying Early to Swarthmore, mainly because I wanted to get into a college early on and not worry about anything for the rest of the year, but then I fell in love with St Andrews..... it doesn't offer an Early application option, so for St Andrews alone I've pushed all my applications back to Regular. And it feels great! Of course, I'll be fairly miserable on December 20th, when I have to get all my supplements in the mail, but I'm working on all the essays already, or at least pondering them every moment of every day, so I think I will be on top of that.

My classes ended at 11:30 today. How sweet is that? I lolled around campus for about fifteen minutes, and was home by 12:15. You know what I've started to notice recently? People in their cars are so detached from reality. I see zero other windows rolled down - everyone is inside their air-conditioned bubble, with their radio or iPod playing, set on their destination. Isn't that one of the ideas that Crash presents, that people don't actually interact with each other till they crash into each other, and have to get out to exchange information? (I haven't seen it yet). Well, that's kind of sadly true. But the weather is so perfect right now! There's no place better to roll your windows down than here in Los Angeles, and play your music just loud enough that it's not obnoxious, but so you can hear it over the hum of the engine, which you can't hear with windows up.... the air is right at that spot between warm and cool, where it's perfectly comfortable, and you get such an amazing breeze. Roll down your windows, people!

In On the Road, Jack Kerouac says that Los Angeles is a cruel and impersonal city. I thought that was interesting and somewhat ironic, as he lived in New York, which is the city that has the New York minute, to emphasize how fast-paced and stressed New Yorkers are. That's not to say we're not stressed in Los Angeles, but I think we're more laid back and chill, not to mention we've got sun all year round and long, warm days. It's the perfect place for people to be happy. Sure, Los Angeles may be big, but it's big and sprawling and lazy; New York is tall and abrupt and overwhelming. But for all that I disagree with Kerouac's statement that Los Angeles is an unfriendly place next to New York, I was surprised to realize that there's more than just a grain of truth when he says that it's an impersonal city. It is definitely impersonal. Friendly, but still impersonal. I don't think New York is necessarily any less impersonal, but still. Los Angeles is a big city, and too many people drive around with their windows rolled up, totally detached from how wonderful and beautiful their city is.

posted by Holly @ 4:27 PM