Apple Wins.

I should be writing an essay. I should be memorizing lines. Maybe I should be at the gym. I have an hour of spare time, and am I productive? No.


Sometimes I need to FEEL as though I’m being productive, and that’s where organization comes in. If you were to talk to my mom she would say, “Haley? Organized? HA!” So maybe I’m not actually the most organized person (my room is a mess, trust me), but there is one thing in my life I keep organized: my iTunes account.


It’s silly, I know. And you could argue it’s more of an obsession than a passion, but oh well, it is important to me. I will spend hours on end organizing, re-labeling, and downloading music to my computer.


For the longest time last year, at my home back in Missouri, we didn’t have internet access. Someone would give me a CD, and I would go to add it to my iTunes, but alas, none of the CD information would import with it. Time and time again this would happen to me. Eventually my precious account was filled with haunting “track 01”’s and “unknown artists”. Frustrated as I was, I did my best to remedy these errors, but the amount of music I had carelessly let slip by without identities was out of hand.


Now I sit, in-between classes and late into the wee hours of the morning, editing, refining, and beautifying my account (while also avoiding some more pressing responsibilities). If one were to view my, for lack of a more eloquent word, gorgeous, music library, they would see accurate artist names accompanying small squares of album art, a detail most people settle upon living without when importing music, something I oddly pride myself on.


I have come to the conclusion that my “distraction” with my iTunes may be nothing more than a stress reliever. I can only assume I use this to procrastinate, because it is something that relaxes me. This systematized arranging of files tricks my brain and body into thinking I am accomplishing important tasks; which, I have to say, is a good thing. Yes, sometimes I should be doing my actual homework, or accomplishing some other necessary activity, but each person needs something that can slow them down for a few minutes. Everyone needs to do a brainless activity sometimes, and allow their mind a chance to escape from the pressures of the real, outside world. My very strange “passion” is my own way of doing this. It has suited me well for the past few months.


And hey, I always know how to get to that one song I’m in the mood to listen to at the gym.

My Nemesis.

I awake from the greatest ten minutes of sleep I’ve ever had. I roll to my side. I look at my alarm clock. 7:50. 7:50?! I hit snooze at seven and meant to sleep for ten minutes, things are clearly not going as planned this morning!


I race down stairs, grab my keys, and jump into the driver’s seat of my 2009 Toyota Corolla. I take off, speeding down my gravel road and turn out onto the highway which will take me to school. I am suddenly wide-awake and well-aware of the fact that I have less than fifteen minutes to drive the twenty minutes it will take me to arrive on campus.


After five-minutes of speeding pass, I have made good progress; this is when I see it. In the distance, maybe a mile in front of me, blocking out my view of the sun: the dreaded tractor. We have met before, quite often actually. At least once a week we have an encounter and my arrival to school suddenly becomes close to impossible.


You see, people in my town have a different idea of how they should get from point A to point B. While I have no problem driving my foreign, light-weight, car, the boys and girls of small-town, Missouri seem to think that these vehicles would not be sufficient modes of transportation for themselves.


Cars are the easiest way for me to explain it. When someone asks me where I’m from, I tell them, “I little town in Missouri,” but rarely do I feel they really understand what I mean by that. So I explain, “Parties in corn fields, tractors on the highways, and they pronounce wash as ‘WAR-sh.’” This is where I grew up, and where I didn’t fit in.


I found myself, as soon as I could drive, constantly making the hour long drive into the nearest city. I know, I know, “the grass is always greener on the other side,” and I don’t disagree with that. I have grown to realize that living in my hick-town made me love the hustle and bustle of the city that much more, and I don’t mind. I have the opportunity to travel and leave my small town, and I am going to take advantage of it.


I was the odd-ball who didn’t own a truck or consider my John-Deere a source of pride, but that’s okay because I know where I will fit in, I just have to make it there.