I spent a week at West Point. 0500 physical training in the cold rain, marching back and forth from lecture hall to classroom to mess hall and back to barracks at 2230, lights out. Cadences and cadences, an early morning mile-run with a brigadier general and my platoon of one-hundred Cadet Candidates gave me the sort of motivation with which I could barf twice and keep running––I did. It was... fucking awesome. Stupidly but intentionally, I decided to cut caffeine cold on day 1. Military-grade headaches ended day 3. I watched Airborne Rangers jump from a Chinook on day 5 and got in a Black Hawk day 6. By day 7, I made the sort of friends that last after you've crawled through enough dirt together. There's a Preparatory Academy to which I can be referred if admissions decides i'm not yet ready. My squad leader (one of 8 squads in one of 5 platoons of kids during the program) was a Sergeant at the Academy and had finished his sophomore year, after spending that extra first year out of high school at the Prep. I spoke to him a lot about it, he was a really smart dude and I think it might be worth it if I'm given that opportunity, instead of a direct admission. I thoroughly enjoyed not being able to check my Facebook or Instagram, roommates from Texas are hilariously naive but good-hearted, yelling for hours in rank-and-file groups is more motivating than amphetamines, and going to GovBall for two days immediately afterwards pretty much gave me the most intense, invigorating, and beautiful week I've had in a while. (Yeah I saw them alive, yeah it was transcendental, yeah Flying Lotus was better)