C Major

I was almost going to get emotional about my last visit to UIUC, but I realized that we still have Math Team State. How uplifting.

As we drove onto campus in unusually fair morning weather, I noticed, for the very first time, how undepressing the university could actually be. The college town is wide enough to necessitate long, digestive walks, and I imagined my old friends walking around the campus, actually feeling content about their geographical location. Then I remembered how we weren't really friends anymore, so we're going to move on.

There are a few things that even physical discomfort can't ruin. One of those things is watching a freshman down four Taco Bell burritos and a bowl of nachos. Another is discovering a magic called coffee and milk.

And you.

I'm not going to lie, I still feel haunted by my own hopelessness, my every day sickness, my constant self-hatred. But now, for the first time since Sam Tsui released his album and so many months of disgust before that, Start Again makes me smile. So many lines splatter like perfectly synchronized rain drops, and with one massive splat, they dive together, so ungracefully, and land painfully on the belly. The open door slammed shut on my pinky toes, and I so happily welcome these bruises. They remind of what it means to feel and care and open up again.

This is not to make any rash judgments or ruin the best dialogues since I wrote application essays, but to not to subtly hint that for precious, short clips of time, I can see a hair of the truly happy version of me. I see something I've dreamt to meet and to be. I see, finally, finally, an equal, so fearlessly and unashamedly wheeling in the cake.

Lift ye like men, be swoll, let all your squats be done in good form.
C Major