as posted by jess
This semester is monumental for me. I am doing the worst I have ever done, and I am caring the least I ever have.
There are a few things I can blame it on and they are all just as true as the next:
1.) This is my last semester. There is no more schooling after this and if I just slide out of here with C-s that is fine by me.
2.) None of the classes I am taking pertain to anything I went to Temple for over the last three and a half years. I don't care about the topics, I'm not going to learn conversational Spanish in a semester, and I have no real interest in social policy. They were all just required and fit my schedule.
3.) Only one of my teachers instills enough fear and effort in the classroom that causes me to honestly be prepared for class. "You shouldn't have to be scared into doing your work." Bullshit. Think of the classes you've been the most prepared for. Think of the classes you've cared about and were interested in. The classes where the teacher makes an effort to appeal to the whole room. 5:1 ration of shitty teachers to good. I'll rip on the teacher and say I hate the class but at the end of the day it seems to be the only one I'm retaining any knowledge from.
4.) Spring break destroyed my work ethic. That is to say I even had one before it. I really learned a lot about my mental workings over the break and realized quite a number of things. No, my break wasn't spent analyzing my life choices but rather, realizing I need to lighten up on myself. I'm going to let things flow. I don't know why we are taught that if we continue on with our education everything will fall into place. We are told that if it doesn't happen after the first round it will certainly happen after the second. Soon enough we are overqualified and 70 billion dollars in debt. I'm going to do what I want and be happy with it from now on even if other people aren't. I don't know who started the "as long as you go to college you will get a great job in exactly what you want" train of thought, but they really left out those who aren't perfect students and don't even care to be.
5.) Being anxious and proclaiming how reprehensible you are will not get you any where. Spending all day qualifying for the race doesn't mean you will win it. I've decided that I am not going to spend my life collecting accreditations that mean nothing to me just to put down on paper. If it meant nothing to you then, it won't later, why waste the time.
I guess this just all makes me sound like I've given up on my education. I haven't. I love to learn but not this way, not about topics I don't care for, not in a process that makes me upset. Is there a point to all this? Yes, to remind everyone (and myself) that it isn't right to spend your life unhappy preparing for a life of bliss that you just never seem to reach. There is a point where you need to stop preparing, planning things, living in a state of misconstrued time. There is no fun from a life that is just covered in the grime of dwell from unsuccessful plans and consistent debt to dreams.
My latest plan, whenever I realize that I've forgotten about yet another assignment or feel down because of my lack of preparation, has been to realize that when I wasn't doing those things, I was doing WHAT I WANTED.
So as I sit here, looking at something I thought was due later than this afternoon, thinking "what is with you Jess?", I'm just going to put on Dayvan Cowboy by Boards of Canada and get the small thrill I still get from the music that reminds me of looking out of the plane at the snow covered mountains, the pool filled backyards of LA, and the afternoon pick up truck drive through the hills along the coast in Hawaii that let me know that life isn't all this school shit and it never was.