I could say I'll try again next weekend, but that's most probably a lie. It's just not me. Call me socially stunted if you will, but I prefer the term "independent spirit."
This weekend was supposed to mark my newest resolution to start being a more normal, well-adjusted (read: not misanthropic) college student and maybe actually venture outside of my dorm, but, my efforts were quashed by ABC Family's Harry Potter Movie Weekend. Let's be honest, I wasn't really going to go through with my pledge to be all sociable and "try new things," and whatnot. I've been making that same half-hearted resolution for the last two and a half years, but deep down I'm just too lazy/apathetic to actually do anything about it. The truth is, I like watching Harry Potter alone in my room on a Saturday night. Maybe not as much as I would enjoy watching Harry Potter with my close friends and family on a Saturday night, but certainly more than I would enjoy playing beer pong and dancing to Miley Cyrus with a bunch of strangers wearing cowboy boots and J. Crew sundresses. So, to recap: solitude + Harry Potter > drunk strangers + Miley Cyrus. For those of you who have trouble with math (I'm talking to you, Mom), the ">" symbol means greater than.
I could say I'll try again next weekend, but that's most probably a lie. It's just not me. Call me socially stunted if you will, but I prefer the term "independent spirit." Okay, so that title might be a bit overdramatic. As semesters go, this new one (my sixth) hasn't been that bad. On a scale of mildly inconvenient to I'd-rather-be-in-Azkaban, this one has been closer to mockingly obnoxious. Nonetheless, I'd be lying if I said I was glad to be back in this soul-sucking hellhole--I mean... "institution for higher learning."
If you're reading this, thanks for not giving up on me during my month-long hiatus from blogging. Great news: I'm not dead! I just didn't have time over the holiday break to keep up with the blog. Between working at the children's bookstore, watching 'Arrested Development' with my family, eating string cheese, and watching 'Lost' with Rouxski, I didn't have time. Not to mention, there really wasn't anything terribly interesting to write about. I decided not to bore you with blog entries like "Today I Went To The Safeway!" (Although, for the record, my mother and I have plenty of exciting adventures at the grocery store that are borderline blog-worthy.) The most entertaining thing that happened was the saga of Louie the Christmas Mouse, but that's for another day, after I've recovered from the first week of classes. As usual, the university has wasted no time in trying to make my life as difficult as possible, even going so far as to sabotage my tuition payment plan, telling me I owe them oodles of money by the end of the week or they'll disenroll me from all my classes and deactivate my student ID card and meal plan. Ah yes, it's good to be back. Sadly, that whole debacle has been taken care of, so I have to stay here. This semester was the first time I managed to schedule all my classes without any egregious problems or extreme emotional distress. (Of course, this suspicious lack of obstacles inflicted its own paranoid disturbia.) I suppose then I should have been comforted by the frustrations brought on by my second day of classes. Here's some background to get you up to speed: My university has a Nursing School. The Nursing School buildings are located at the far end of campus near the hospital. (So far, everything seems pretty logical, right? Wait for it...) To clarify: I am not in the Nursing School, nor have I ever been in the Nursing School. Despite this point of fact, I have had a class in a Nursing School building for five out of my six semesters. In case you weren't aware, I live pretty much as far away from campus as you can get, so walking to the Nursing School, which is essentially located at the Edge of the World, is quite a trek. (Seriously, between the traffic, the construction, and the pointy-umbrella-wielding pedestrians, it's like Frodo's journey to Mordor, for God's sake.) I was not surprised to find that my required Spanish Translation class is located in the Nursing School, but at least it's in a familiar part of it. My Religion class, however, meets in a building I had never heard of. (That happens a lot here: buildings just randomly pop up in new and inconvenient places.) So I looked up the Claude Moore Nursing Education Building on the map, and found it to be even farther away than any other Nursing School building ever created. I left 45 minutes before my class was scheduled to start, giving myself plenty of time to get lost and confused along the way. Or in case I ran into that Gollum character. After passing through the Candy Cane Forest and answering the bridge troll's three riddles, I finally came to the Claude Moore building, only they had mislabeled it the Claude Moore Nursing Library. With ten minutes to spare, I opened the door only to find a very polite and friendly sign informing me that I was in the wrong building. (Don't even pretend to be surprised; you totally saw that coming.) The sign read, "If you are looking for the Claude Moore Nursing Education Building, turn around, then make a left on Lane Street, and it's on your right!" but what it meant was, "Ha ha! You're an idiot." And that's how I learned where the Claude Moore Nursing Education Building is located. But really, did you run out of names for buildings? Is it really necessary to have two Claude Moore buildings? Or are you actually trying to confuse the students? Frankly, I think that's pretty selfish of Claude to have two buildings named after him when some of us don't even have one. Share the wealth, buddy. Wow, somehow it's been over 100 days since I jumped the track on the whole School of Education thing I had going (AKA the future career track) and decided to slack off as a less miserable Spanish major (with a Religious Studies minor, for what it's worth, which is very little). Anyway, time is of the essence as of late because finals season is upon us, and I have a painful number of papers to finish in order to maintain my status as a supremely mediocre student. So here are some amusing highlights from the past week to placate you until I have time to write a real blog entry:
There is a distinct possibility that I am getting a C in my Women's Studies class. Apparently you don't automatically get an A just for being a woman. (My misunderstanding.) And the questions from the "Reading Quizzes" given by our illiterate TA were more like "Trivia Questions From Footnotes You Didn't Read." But the bottom line is, I can still get a B if I do well on this cursèd final paper. Another shining moment this week was when I somehow managed to cut my finger on my toothpaste cap. I KNOW. It sounds utterly ridiculous, but I kid you not. There was blood. Maybe I can sue the toothpaste company and win millions of dollars. They really should put some kind of warning on those things. ...And the proud moments just keep on coming. I'm not sure how this happened, but my car's driver's side door will no longer open. (In answer to your question, yes, I made sure it was unlocked.) Considering my car is about 18 years old, this didn't come as a surprise. Well, actually, I was pretty surprised to not be able to exit my own vehicle. (Yes, I was in the car when I discovered the door would not open.) Now I get some funny looks when people in the parking lot watch me crawl over the seat to exit on the passenger side. I love that car. I have a theory: My name is on a list. Obviously this list was sent to all employees at this university with an attached memo that read: “Attention Staff: Make these students’ lives a living hell. PS: don’t forget your TPS reports.” How do I propose they decide whose names go on the List? I’m glad you asked. I’m not entirely clear on this, seeing as the school’s hatred for me seems relatively unprovoked. I do have a couple guesses, however:
1.) These are names of legacies whose parent(s) pissed of the administration when they were students, therefore our generation must pay for their crimes. I’m banking on this as the likeliest scenario. My mom probably forgot to return a library book before she graduated. 2.) They somehow found out that this was not my first choice of colleges and now they’re messing with me for their own sadistic entertainment. 3.) The List is compiled of randomly chosen names based on social security numbers and/or birthdays. These may be the ramblings of a half-crazed conspiracy theorist, but I think there’s something to the giant shitstorm that this school keeps throwing me into. When we left off, I was a lost little Spanish major with 9 credit hours, no advisor, and very few attainable career aspirations. Fast-forward 24 hours: I’m feeling pretty good because the Spanish class on Latin American Cinema (AKA my dream class that I’ve been trying desperately to get into since I got to this Godforsaken school) is actually still open, according to the aforementioned impossibly challenging new course enrollment system. Trying not to get my hopes up, I quickly request enrollment and await the professor’s affirmation to tell me I am officially in the class. After not hearing a response, I take a proactive approach and e-mail her explaining how excited I am for her class and which section has more room? Another day passes, and still no word, so I decide to just show up to the class. At 8 AM. (Now that’s dedication.) I gleefully awaken at 7 o’clock and make my way to the secret hidden classroom in the basement of the library (creepy). I find a friend from a previous Spanish class and she tells me this course is great and she hopes I get in. Witty banter ensues. Prof sits down, takes roll, and I bring my predicament to her attention. She tells me, “Lo siento, pero no hay espacio en la clase,” which is Spanish for “Fuck you, get out of my classroom.” (Not really, but that’s how it felt.) I ask her about the 9:30 section of the class. She tells me she will be letting in one more student but then it, too, will be full. She does all this very politely, but still manages to make me think she just might be the Devil incarnate. I am fighting both the urge to bust into tears and the impulse to scream, “I’M A THIRD-YEAR SPANISH MAJOR AND THERE ARE FIVE EMPTY DESKS IN THIS CLASSROOM SO WHAT THE FUCK IS THE PROBLEM?!” (Now that kind of outburst would probably earn me some kind of asterisk or gold star on The List: “*Requires excessively thorough torment*”) But I don’t. Cry or scream, that is. (At least not right then.) I ask if there is even a small chance of getting into one of the classes, if it’s worth it for me to stay. She shakes her head with fake compassion. So I pick up the tiny pieces of my shattered dreams off the floor, gather my books and take the walk of shame out of the classroom. That class was pretty much my last hope. I had somehow convinced myself that despite this rocky transitional time, everything would be great once I got into that Spanish class. I realize it was a bad idea to put all my eggs in one basket, and I was seriously regretting turning down the other two offers of enrollment I had received, sure that I could get into this class. This meant that in order to maintain the 12-credit minimum, I would have to stay in the Religion class that I had signed up for in a moment of blatant stupidity: The History of the Bible. It met for 2 hours and 45 minutes once a week. Its subject was not the content of the Bible, but rather how the books included in the Bible were chosen and why. Like I said, it was a horrible decision. I realized this after the first meeting, but hadn’t technically dropped it yet. Without my beloved Spanish film class, I had no choice but to go crawling back to History of the Bible. At this point I had 24 hours to complete the week’s worth of reading that I hadn’t started, thinking I would surely be dropping the class. I had spent a couple hours trying to get through the tedious readings when I checked my e-mail. I received a message from the Spanish film class professor notifying me that I had been granted a spot in the 9:30 section of the class. ... REALLY?! Now that I’ve missed three classes and completed 75% of my mind-numbing Religion reading, NOW you decide to let me into your class? Not before when I was, you know…present? Really? Why must they toy with my emotions like this? I was equally outraged and relieved. And I really didn’t want to do the last 25% of my reading for History of the Bible. So it all worked out and everyone lived happily ever after. (False. Remember The List?) We’ll see how it goes down when I actually show up for class. (“Surprise! You got Punk’d.”) My brother suggested I make the “Facial” sign when I see her in class, but I think that might be one expression that gets lost in translation. Today is the day I became a collegiate delinquent.
Twenty years old, a third-year (that's "junior" for you normal people) at a prestigious university that some would probably kill to get into, and the reality is beginning to set in that I may, in fact, end up working at the 7-11. (If I'm lucky.) Because today I decided to, as my brother put it, "abandon ship," which is to say I am withdrawing from the School of Education at my university and have absolutely no idea where to go from here. (You can see the flaw in my plan, or lack thereof.) The School of Education is a renowned teacher education program which I excitedly applied to (there was a form and everything- very official) that would have earned me a Masters in teaching, complete with an in-demand profession, a bright future, and summers off. But I turned all that down in a fleeting moment of clarity during my first real Education class when I suddenly found myself thinking, "What am I doing here?" Finally I let myself think all the terrifying thoughts I had suppressed since my entry into the Education School: I don't want to teach. I hate speaking in front of people. High schoolers scare me. Kids these days have guns and knives and homophobia and misdirected resentment for authority figures. And I don't do well with children, so that rules out elementary ed. (They're cute, but they're like aliens to me. I just don't understand them. Which is odd, since I was one. But I digress.) And as I'm thinking THIS WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA and trying not to burst into tears, which would no doubt alarm the friendly new acquaintance sitting next to me whom I've just learned from another ridiculous getting-to-know-you exercise (the Ed School loves these) has a brother and thinks blue is an above-average color, I feel a sense of relief come over me. And I don't care what my sweet and diminutive professor is saying because I will never come back to this class again. And I will never take the boring American History 201 class that they required I take IN ORDER TO TEACH SPANISH. (Seriously- how ridiculous is that?) My startling realization brought on a new wave of panic as I contemplated what do I do now? So you're an Ed School dropout. Now what? This wouldn't be an issue if I was a naive young freshman with my whole college career ahead of me and semesters worth of fucking-up to do, or even a spry-but-weathered sophomore, but, no. I am over the halfway point. And classes started yesterday. This means that all the nice classes I would now be free to take are already beyond full of smart, happy little people who know exactly what they're doing with their lives. And then there's me: jumping off the boat without a raft or an island or even a floating door like in 'Titanic.' And it would appear I do not know how to swim because I'm drowning in this enormous ocean, but at least I won't miss 'The Office' every Thursday this semester because my Thursday night class has just become irrelevant, along with 5 of my 11 other credits for the semester and 8 of my credits from last year. I tell myself, lots of Spanish majors graduate and find jobs and become successful. Surely there will be a job for me somewhere. (And don't call me Shirley.) I mean, it's not like the economy is bad or anything... So this is the story of how I found myself suddenly without a future and how my college conspired against me. |