During O-Week I partied every night for a week. It was fun. I felt really outcasted from my dorm, since I live in the weird quirky nerd dorm. One day I met a girl, and upon giving her my name, she told me that I had a reputation for making out with all the girls. I went out with people from this one dorm every night, and I thought that these people might be my friends, but in the back of my head I knew that I would be too lazy and too much of a sociopath to make any effort to keep in touch with them, even though they lived only a block away. The night before the first day of classes was the first time the single glow-in-the-dark star on my ceiling wasn't shifting and swirling. I ended up making a few close friends in my dorm. Like, 3 or 4. I don't really talk to most of the people who live in my building. I'm that pansexual girl who drinks a lot and got voted to be in charge of the communal condoms.
My classes were hard, but I don't know, I always think that. I don't know what it is compared to other people's. I probably could have worked harder. I could always have worked harder. It was harder than high school, but there was also more distraction. When grades come out I expect to have two A's and two B's. I learned that I absolutely suck at math. I don't know if I can continue being a math major. I should give back my math scholarship. But I have too much pride so I'll keep being a math major. The thing about honors classes in college is that they are hard as all hell but they will not give you bad grades if you put forth any sort of effort. My social sciences class has been my favorite. We learned to analyze social science studies, talked about the heuristics and shortcuts in thinking that people use, and we're going to learn basic statistics next quarter. I'm a better essay writer.
I planned on joining all these clubs and volunteering so much, but I found it hard to will myself to go to the single volunteer tutoring position I had. I feel as if all my extracurriculars need to be relevant to my future career now. Employers are not going to care about my art or teaching or singing or any of that, so it would be a waste of time to do. I spent way more money than I thought I would. I applied to a lot of jobs and research positions. I got one for next quarter, and it's a stupid one consisting of caring for transgenic zebra fish in a lab, but it'll be money. I hope I get an internship this summer. I don't even really know how to find one. I'm sure I won't get anything.
I barely talk to my family. I never spoke to my mom on the phone and that was very okay with me. I was supposed to call my uncle and grandma once in a while but I didn't. Sometimes I was "too busy" to answer their calls. I wrote them Christmas cards though so hopefully that'll suffice.
I've been disillusioned. Almost everyone who is close to me is secretly depressed. But maybe that's just because I'm me and everyone I am friends with ever is depressed, but it makes me suspect that it is more prevalent than what I know about. College is just school. I wish I went into the city more often. I love the CTA though. I love it so much. I'm still adjusting. No one understand who I really am yet. I'm slowly starting to "come out" to people about cutting, about my parents, about being generally fucked up and stupid. People at school don't understand that when I don't proactively make that coffee date with them, it doesn't mean I dislike them. That's part of why it's been hard to make friends I don't live around. I don't mind it much, except that I feel like I might be missing out on people that are just within reach and could be awesome to be friends with. But I know that new friendships where we have to proactively contact each other are just not sustainable for me, so it's not worth it to try really. I always need to go study instead anyway. The only person who I don't live by and who talks to me a lot is this girl who thought she was straight and then secretly had a crush on me.
My campus is beautiful and conveniently located for travel between the city and my permanent address. When I'm there, I have more responsibilities and more independence, which I love. I can pretend my family doesn't exist. At the same time, I can no longer blame them for my problems. Any shit I feel is of my own creation. No one is dictating my life any longer. When I can't control my emotions and have no blame for them, that worries me. There were nights when I couldn't stop crying for no reason and I needed to call LE in order to calm me down. I am so lucky to have him. He visited me a lot and spent all of my campus food dollars. He's the best. RS also visited me twice. That was fun. Fun, but I always had things hanging over me that I needed to do. I have to accept that college will be chunks of 10 continuous weeks of stress and work forever never being caught up on.
I feel like people are defined by their major. I don't know if I feel so in touch with what is supposed to be my major, Math with specialization in Econ. If I could do Math and Sociology, I would feel good about that, but my parents say I need to do Econ and then I can't fit in Sociology. So I'll do a Gender and Sexuality Studies minor I think. But do I want to do be defined by that? I want to major in everything, so effectively nothing. Why is college so much, but still not enough?
-T.
No comments:
Post a Comment