Transition, part II (Chapter I)

The next set of posts, "Transition, part II" were written partly on my way home from Texas. This is going to be fairly lengthy set of posts, and, as a caveat, I may not post them contiguously.

As I write this, I'm sitting at the airport in Dallas, Ft. Worth, waiting for my connecting flight to Newark. I'm finally coming home from Texas. I got up early today. Very early. When the alarm went off at 5am, I hit the snooze button. When the larm went of at 5:10am, I jumped out of bed in a panic; the cab was scheduled to depart at 5:30. I had 20 minutes to get ready, get extraneous stuff packed, turn in my key and drag approximately 100 lbs of luggage down four floors. I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up the entire dorm with the racket I made going down the stairs. I got to the airport at College Station at 5:49, only to find that the American Airlines baggage check wasn't even open; they didn't come in until 6:30am. Well. This was definitely not an airport in the North East, where you have to be 2 hrs early or risk missing your flight. After I checked my baggage, I noticed security check was closed. This was confusing, as they were open only a little while before. Security check didn't reopen until 7:10am. My flight was scheduled to board at 7:19am. By this time, I was silently panicking again. Of course, as I went through security, I got pulled over to be screened and patted down (Oh College Station, how I'll miss you). 5 minutes later, I had all my stuff together. The best part is, we did board, on time, at 7:19am. No problems.

The laxness of the airport, the blatant lack of hurry defines this place. It is a stark contrast to the mad rush, impatience, and need to start everything early that exists in the NE. I was suprrised that I liked it. Texas is an interesting place like that. Though I've been researching all summer long, I still think of the trip as a vacation in a lot of ways. A new place, flowers, new faces, warm weather (edit: oppresively warm weather). Yeah, I never bought my cowboy hat, but I'm going to miss Texas.

So why is this entry called "Transition, part II"? Flights are rarely transitions. Vacations come and go; summers pass. So why do I think, one again, that my life is in transition?

Because once again, it is.