reflections

i am done with freshman year

what? where the hell did THAT time go??

this morning, as i was sitting at the bar (please note i am not a raging alcoholic, we merely have a bar in our apartment where i do i lot of my work in the mornings. don't worry about me, i don't have my champagne with my breakfast) writing my final exam essay for my ethnic literature course, the maintenance men knocked on our door (actually scared the shit out of me, i literally fell off my chair and went sprinting to the bathroom) and came in to remove our broken stove and replace it with a new one. i had a moment of shock here....here i was, sitting at the bar in late april, watching a stove that was broken in probably october finally get replaced. what?? it seemed like just last weekend V drunkenly fell into the stove and shattered the glass door, then jumped up and continued making margaritas because she hadn't even noticed she'd broken it (admittedly very amusing occurence by the way).

regardless, the maintenance men incidentally kinda put time in perspective for me and i got a little freaked out...i am a quarter of the way through with my undergrad education...wtf?? is this how fast life goes, people? it's terrifying.

it begs the necessary questions...what am i doing? why the hell have i wasted my time? am i wasting my time??

i'm trudging through typical college life...classes, friends, studying, partying...typical. its all to achieve an end of course...3 years from now i'll be peacing out with a diploma that says i'm certified and educated enough to go teach some high school kids english. but does that seem inspired enough?

my friend emclev this morning posted a note on facebook that announced she was dropping out of school for two years to volunteer in an orphanage in tanzania. emclev is 20. and. she. is. awesome. the note addressed all the questions people who think her decision is absurd ask: but most primarily--what about your education?

emclev's answer?

"I’ve grown up with the social expectation that I will go to college, get a degree, get a job, get rich, marry a rich handsome dude, have kids, retire, and die, in that order. Now I realize that at some point, I want kids, so a husband is probably going to have to come into the picture at some point. And kids are expensive, so I’ll probably need a job. Which will probably require a degree. That all makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is the train of thought that says taking one or two years off to get edumacated in hardcoreawesomeness in Africa is going to ruin all of that. I am twenty years old, not ninety. I have plenty of time to get my degree. So why not get it now, you say? Why not leave Africa til later, you say? Well, I’ve learned from several friends/teachers/personal experiences that now is the time in my life where a smidgen of selfishness is okay. So, I’m gonna be selfish with how I spend my time. Education in the formal sense hasn’t served me well in the conventional sense of success so far- or maybe I haven't served it well. I came, I saw, I attempted, I got bored and lost motivation, and I think a change of scenery/perspective is exactly what I need. This school isn’t going anywhere. To be fair, neither is Africa, but in all seriousness, this is what I feel the pull to do at the moment. It is a passionate decision that has been brewing for almost a year now- who am I to argue with such a headstrong passion? I don’t want to spend my time soaking in monotony and waiting to get out so I can chase this dream, when it is feasible that my formal education can wait until later when I truly deserve to be here."

i'm not trying to say i want to drop everything and run off the africa.

...

actually, i do, but i'm not the ballsy inspiring type to actually go through with it. multiple times throughout the semester i've wondered if maybe i should take a year off and do something amazing, just because college doesn't always seem to cut it for me. i'm too eager to get into the world that i'm not enthused about the work it takes to get there. how the hell do i remedy this without wasting another year of time? basically thats whats plagueing me this morning, as i recall all the events of the past year, and reflect on how, unfortunately, yet again, i just haven't done enough.

this weekend, an opportunity i've been hoping for for years may or may not present itself. i hope it does and i hope i get the opportunity to choose whether to take it or not.

i'll keep you posted

:)

in the meantime, thank you freshman year...it's been good