The End (Is The Beginning Is The End...)

So I'm sitting here, and Bloc Party is playing ("Do you wanna come over / and kill some time..."). My feet have grown irrepairably smelly since I arrived in Dunedin, but only with the exemplary weather of the past few weeks has their ripe cheese odor authoritatively announced itself. There is a stack of twenty books behind me on the floor. Aside from "Robinson Crusoe" and "Humphry Clinker," I have no idea which others I also want to leave behind. Should I bring home my "Rough Guide to New Zealand"? On the one hand, if I ever need such a travel guide again the year will be somewhere around 2025 and half of this country's now-touted coastal sights will be underwater. On the other... I've grown to love that damned book!

My bedding was turned in yesterday a few hours after I passed my room inspection by a former Professor who spent ten minutes declaring I was "the uncannily spitting image of a former student of mine... Mark (somethingorother)? You know him? Played rugby? Ah, well, I supposed we've all got a twin somewhere out there, haven't we now? One time my wife went back to Ireland, and you wouldn't believe..." Anyway, the point is I don't have pillows anymore, so my monstrous snow jacket and Otago sweatshirt are rolled up into quite the uncomfortable lump where my head goes.

The walls are bare (save for the frequent knick or scratch, which makes them even MORE bare, you know?), as are the bookshelves.

I've said goodbye to everyone noteworthy.

I'm wondering who's going to be in here next.

My camera is charging for its voyage to Fiji.

And all of these trivialities are being painstakingly carried out in order to keep my mind off of the future. It's looming just out of reach, like a soft white cloud that could either float by merrily or turn into one devil of a thunderstorm.

Now I'll see you all even sooner than the last time I said this.