I have precious few things in my life that could be considered leisurely. This is also the first time in almost three years that I've had any leisure time at all to speak of. I guard it with precious ferocity, schedule it along with homework sessions and my drive to Worcester, and plan on doing karate even when everything else seems to be going to pot (mostly because I am tired of living, breathing, and sleeping speech-language pathology.) So the precious two hours a week I put aside for the karate classes at the UMass gym are jealously guarded.
I pay lots of money in fees to this univeristy, fees that I can't get waived or get financial aid to think about because well they're FEES not TUITION, to have access to some of the clubs on campus. Mind you, I've had NO TIME during my tenure here up until this semester to even take advantage of them, and so I feel an extra sort of snootiness about it: UMass has made alot of money off my student activities fee that I never used for three semesters (and I don't even know what the money goes towards. Grad students still have to PAY to get into sporting events. Wha??) And with an indignant huff I feel entitled.
When I come home from a long day in Worcester where I pay for the privledge to work in a hospital, or a long day working in the lab then sitting through classes, I want to be able to drive to the gym on the other side of campus, park, and take the fucking karate class. End of story. And when I have to spend 15 minutes driving circles through campus trying to find parking I tend to get a little testy.
Usually parking isn't a problem, that is, until there's a basketball game. Or a hockey game. And when there's a sporting event going on, a sporting event taking place at a Division I school, everyone turns out. Freshman, seniors, alumni, and the general public, and it drives me batshit. Absolute batshit. I spit at the sight of Lexii SUVs driving around the parking lots with a 60-something couple squinting at the last spot in the lot. I fume at the tailgaters (!) chugging beer as they make their way to the gym. I think horrible obscene thoughts as I see them, these visitors, taking away any and all hope of getting any parking anywhere within a half-mile radius of my stupid, little karate class; one of the few things that is keeping me sane until I graduate.
All of you, all of you people taking away parking from those of us who pay to go to this university to study something: go away. I pay for this goddammed campus and I want to use it.
