Realizing I didn't know where the Outing Club meeting was being held and needing an excuse to get away from my thoughts, I hit the tunnels looking for one of the multitude of Outing Club flyers that had been posted everywhere as early as this morning. Alas, none were to be found as I headed towards Gracie's. A thorough browsing of all the flyers in the Grace Watson lobby turned up nothing. And it was at this point that the homesickness reached its peak. For when I reached the one end, I saw the housing office, and peeking in I saw the same waiting area setup and desk I had sat in with my Dad on a college visit/mini-vacation we'd made when I was still in the deciding phase. Thinking of such an awesome time from such a safe place in my life when I was now at such a low point made me hurt so much I practically wanted to scream. I wished more than anything that I could walk in that office and my Dad would be there, and after a quick tour of the dorms we'd be able to leave and go back home. After a minute of standing there feeling the loneliest I'd felt since those first two weeks here, I headed back up to the dorms realizing I still had to set the windup to record Scrubs.

I can't remember if it was during this brief stop or during the studying phase, but at some point I hit studentsreview.com and analyzed my transfer options, as I always do when rites looking particularly shitty. One thing I noticed was that while RIT has the lowest satisfaction rating (though not by as much as I'd previously thought), it's current job satisfaction rating among alumni was one of the higher ones. Thinking that if RIT sucked at least my working life would be a step up provided small comfort. Even if I do end up with a job I hate, at least I'll be able to come home to a place that's distinctly mine with stuff arranged as I want it with the considerations of another human being sharing the same space. At least I'll be able to leave my shit in the bathroom then, and take a nice warm bath and soak with a book when I need to. And if a job sucks bad enough I can quit and move on to something else. Likewise, unlike here where every test determines the rest of my future prospects, the worst that can happen at a job is that I get fired and have to move on to something perhaps less satisfactory. Future problems are bumps in the road.

I didn't really lift out of my funk until Outing Club, however. Setting the recording timer for an hour and fifteen minutes at 8:58, I realized I still didn't know where outing club is. On a whim, I hit the tunnels and ventured in the other direction, and found one of the flyers still handing up. Naturally the meeting was in building after all the searching about, and so I arrived on the scene at 9:02 (according to my cell phone). It was packed, standing room only, and the Mike I go biking with was there. I hit the back of the room and listened. It turns out that this was the biggest turn out they'd gotten since the current presidents have been in the club. They have a trip planned for the weekend I'm going home, but I guess I'll be missing that;). That's okay though, because they're planning another trip for the weekend of the sixteenth, either a canoeing day trip or an overnight/two night camping trip at Stony Brook down by Long Island. Either one sounds interesting, and just the prospect of having something to look forward to when I came back from my trip home did a good deal to lift my spirits. The rest of the meeting went well and was very interactive, so I knew there was a genuine interest among the people who showed up. When they were asking about potential places to check out, one guy mentioned the Clarksville Caves (!), noting that he had access to a cabin we could stay at. I guess our little area is more popular that we thought. After the formal meeting, Mike and I talked to one of the Co-Presidents. It was a nice discussion about different trip options, different trips we'd each made, and various club organizational things. He was quite knowledgeable about outdoor trips, and you could tell he had a lot of experience with it. One of the trips he wants to do is a winter camping trip, in the deep cold. It was nice to hear some genuine enthusiasm about something other than video games. If my car's ready I'm strongly thinking about bringing it up and just hitting different local hiking spots for day trips on the weekends and getting the word out there in case two or three other people want to come too. I also volunteered my services for bringing their website back up-to-date. I left feeling more contented than I had all day.

When I got back my roommate was gone to God knows where, which will probably irk my single-child nature if when he's still up and I'm ready for bed. But for now it gave me a much needed chance to unwind. I set my computer to encoding raw video of the Scrubs episodes I'd recorded into SVCD video after watching it commercials and all. While that was encoding, I sorted through my Massive Laundry Pile™, straightening the shirts that were inside-out and sorting between stained (into laundry bag) and unstained (rewear pile). Recalling this, I notice to my disgust and amusement that I didn't distinguish between "unstained but ripe" and "unstained and unsmelly". If it didn't look dirty, I plan on getting another wear. And that's where I am now. I plan on finishing my Java review for the Comp. Sci. quiz before I go to bed, now that I'm feeling calm and hopeful again. I'm more confident about Cultural Anthropology, so I'm going to use my four hour break to do the study guide questions, catch lunch, and then review the topics in the essay question again.

If you asked me before Outing Club what I would do if I fall below expectations on the two quizzes and the English paper we're getting back Thursday, I would have probably said I'd be giving up. Now I realize that these first grades are simply a gauge to know how much harder I need to work in some classes and which classes I'm overdoing it for. In my funks, I can see only closed doors. For the moment, anyway I see hard-won possibilities.