There's nothing better to do, so...

I think I'll update my blog! It is a beautiful Saturday afternoon out here and I'm sitting in an outdoor cafe after spending most of last night and this morning doing absolutely zero work. This would have been wonderfully conducive to future productivity had I not spent all that time playing Halo 2, which I unwisely rented from my neighborhood Blockbuster. Now my biological clock is all messed up, I'm feeling sleepy and I am very unproductive. No way could I crack a book right now. Come to think of it, it's not all that different from being hung over, not that I would know, mind you (I've never had more than a drink and a half in a night in my life).

It is a rather strange time right now, just before the start of classes on Monday. The atmosphere around campus is relaxed--all the Greek houses are having their annual rush ceremonies so the live bands are out and the aroma of burgers and hot dogs on the grill is rising into the air, a smoke signal to impressionable freshmen that "The cool people are here!". The liquor is flowing freely but the frats seem remarkably well-behaved. Oh, wait a minute, never mind. the liquor ISN'T flowing freely because there's a campus-wide alcohol ban at frat parties (for a little while anyway). Ha! I feel like such a crabby old fogey neighbor. If I'm like this at 23 imagine what I'll be like at 63! *Evil laugh*. For a moment, the frantic, manic, obsessive cramming for the quals has suddenly subsided. Tomorrow it will abruptly start up again and the whole mad merry-go-round machine of the semester will begin to grind on.

I've started writing fiction again. A long time ago I used to write stories and by a long time ago I mean middle school and junior high. Not being one for sports and having no friends in my home town (I attended school several towns away), I wrote to pass the time. Fantasy stories, the usual sword-'n'-sorcery plots, were my passion. My inspiration was "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis (God, I hope that Disney doesn't butcher the film version), which I read and re-read so many times that the covers had begun to fall off. I was especially inspired by the third book in the series, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", which related the journey of Prince Caspian in the search for the Seven Lords of Telmar. Perhaps what fascinated me the most about that book was the title page on which there was a hand-drawn schematic of the Dawn Treader, the ship that Prince Caspian commandeered throughout the book. It pointed out the various decks, the lanterns hung at the bow and the stern, the lookout's perch inside the prow shaped like a dragon's head, and the various compartments below deck. It was the perfect vehicle for adventure.

I was 12 when I finished my first fantasy story. It was an 80-page behemoth (typed, single-space no less!) about three characters similar to ones in Narnia and related their adventures in the "Dragoneye Sea". I used an old version of Micrografx Designer to draw maps of the Realm of the Dragoneye Sea. I even began work on appendices that detailed the pantheon of gods, the creation myth (I had been studying classical mythology as part of Latin class), and even the constitutional monarcy that ruled one of the countries, "Mythia". In the end, the story was a horrible mess. I threw in practically every fantasy cliche I knew of at the time--the magic-wielding princess, the brash warrior, the vaguely Middle Eastern urchin--and made Olympian leaps of logic, but to me, a nerdy, wimpy 12-year old who had viewed writing as a chore rather than a pleasure, it was a turning point, a realization that with my ten fingers I had the power to hold people's imaginations captive.

Then, life happened. First boarding school, then college. I tried writing fiction again, but never made it past a few pages. When I wrote my undergraduate thesis, a hundred pages of research on Southeast Asian regoinal security, I thought that I had at last put all those things behind me and that I was on the road to *ahem* a "mature" career for which writing was a tool, not a toy. Yet at times I still felt the desire to commit my thoughts to the page. It wasn't because I thought I could be a good writer but rather because I just felt pulled. I think I am beginning to understand what writers mean when they talk about the urge to write.

Escapism. Looking back through the various writings I've composed over the years, I've noticed that there is a consistent theme of leaving, running away, seeing new places, forging off on one's own. Long journeys have always held a special fascination for me. In addition to "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" I loved "The Hobbit" by C.S. Lewis's close friend J.R.R. Tolkien. Bilbo Baggins's call to a new life far removed from the comforts of his hobbit-hole Under the Hill in The Shire echoed my own strong desire not to be confined to an "ordinary" life, which to me was exemplified by the 9-to-5 cubicle job. I've been occasionally criticized by people who have told me, "Look, most people don't have the luxury of choosing their vocation. They need to make money to support a family, make ends meet, and besides, how many people really enjoy their job? That's a luxury. Don't look down on the people who don't have that privilege." This is all true, but it misses the point. I'm not saying that people have a choice about the 9-to-5 cubicle job and choose not to take it, and of course we cannot wantonly throw off responsibility, yet sometimes I wonder at how easy it is to get lulled into the security of routine like Bilbo Baggins and what it would be like to just drop everything and run off into the unknown. Not being able to do so in real life without absorbing unacceptable costs, I've tried the next best thing--to imagine it on paper. What would it be like to drop everything and take off? Where would I go? What would I do? How would it change me? Perhaps the story will give me new insights into this and allow me, at least temporarily, to escape from the grind and catch a moment of clarity.