A girl doing homework on the train at 9:40 p.m. It’s one of the saddest sights in the City. Knowing that she’ll have to ride this train for another hour, at least, before she gets home, that her commute is so long that doing her homework on the subway is the only option she has… it’s just awful.

I know a girl named Rosa, a beautiful, hardworking Italian girl from Queens. We took a course together on the literature and politics of American slavery, and the reading for that class was INSANE. But Rosa always had her shit together. In fact, one day, our professor gave us a pop quiz, and Rosa was the only person in the class to get every question correct. Even the professor was astonished by her effort. We all asked her how she managed to do it. “How in the hell did she manage to retain Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography? It was just assigned two days ago!” we all wondered.

“Well, my commute’s so long; I just read it twice. I had nothing else to do.”

Does anyone know how long that shit is? Christ. It bothers me so much that a distance of maybe 15 miles or so would take THAT long to travel by subway. Shit’s fucked up, yo.

Seriously? I love New York, but I’m moving the day the train makes me have to read something twice. TWICE. Shudder.