Two down, two to go
So I didn't think I'd feel this relieved until four were down, but with the weekend as a buffer and the prospect of seeing my family, it feels quite alright.
This is an interesting point in life. For the first time i feel like I'm at a pinnacle - the zenith - of my life. But not regarding happiness. I'd say it's more in the context of interestingness.1
I feel like I'm at a crossroads. Not a fork in the road, cause that implies only one source. A crossroads, however, you can reach by many different starting paths. And now there're many ways to go. I view college as the fusion point of "adolescence" and adulthood (I put adolescence in quotes for those of you inventionalists2 out there). Ideas and plans for our occupational futures have long been crystalizing as we form the habits of (ahem) responsible people. But it's weird...3
At the end of last year (as in the end of last spring semester) there was excitement, a sort of spark. By now comfortable in our new homes at college we now looked forward to another beginning. With a fair amount of extablished friends we're ready for more - more fun, more curiosity, more college. GIVE ME A SECOND HELPING! Just like those tacos you wait ten minutes in line for at the cafeteria4, the ingredients that make up the college semester are some stale, most unhealthy, but taken simultaneously form an irresistable...mess.
Despite these fermenting feelings, no feeling or emotion lasts forever.5 You get settled and comfortable with the college life and it loses its novelty. (I could be trite and quote the song Shimmer. But I won't; you're welcome.) Once those butterflies turn into stomach ulcers the magic seems to fade. It's like when your family takes you to Disney World for the second time. And you feel the same disappointment when your school mascot takes off his headpiece as you did when your parents told you that wasn't really Mickey Mouse you got your picture taken with. LIES!
When your second year is over, you realize how much you've accomplished (I can't believe I broke the record for the chugging contest, either). But seriously, it's hard to fathom that [for most people] half of your classes are done. Most sophomores are moving out of the dorms for good. Despite being packed in tighter than an internment camp, the perpetual musk of beer and asbestos emanating from the carpeting, military-protocol security measures, and the pragmatic vigilance of the R.A.s, most people DID create memories in these places. And it's kind of, well, funny... to say good-bye to friends, some of whom may be moving 'cross town, or even going abroad or completely transferring. I'm sure there are tons of people who "can't wait to egt out of the shitholes," but as for the Emo saps like me it's hard not to place a value on our lives and on our memories. And I have a feeling a lot more people are with me than would readily admit. After all, it can be disconcerting to move on. With every breath we add a gossamer layer of sentimentality to those brick walls. Hopefully, we can all look back with a satisfied sense of pride and generativity.
I have a feeling that the coming of the second summer is a point of maximum reminiscence; it's impossible to deny that we've all grown and matured together, symbiotically. I don't think we know it yet, but this might be the last time we take a look back like this. ...Most of junior year we won't remember, including the two-month period encompassing our 21st birthdays. Senior year, well.... we will be much too preoccupied with our impending futures to muse on the past. Just as in high school, many will be "too good for this place, so done with it."
What sentimentality still lingering will be blocked out in self defense - a self-induced immunity to heartache.
If I could summarize the nature of undergraduate life, I would define it pejoratively yet unabashedly as a suspension of adulthood and an extension of adolescence. Righteous values and honorable virtues so acutely refined as teenagers are left derelict to wither. Until one day (and everybody reaches that day) the mirror reflects a personality vacuous and though maybe not sad, not happy either. Here the concepts and ideals left moribund and neglected in the sake of fun and curiousity are watered back to life and apologized to. And they do indeed grow back. We're lucky our minds are resilient, fecund like a potato - rich in nutrients and able to regenerate with but a little moisture and sincere penitence.
This is growing up. One step out of many. It's finding who you are.
College is so ephemeral, tranisent. But I finally feel grounded. Happy with who I am.
Well, i'm getting tired of typing. And I just reminded myself of something unpleasant (It doesn't have to do with a girl, I swear). So i'm gonna stop here before this post turns into a parallel of "Linda".6
1 oh how I love the elasticity of the English language; I doubt that's a word. Even if I think of a better word i'm not replacing it because of its sheer literary effect.
2 Inventionalists assert that adolescence is not a biologically separate phase of development but a period of growth only characterized by society's influences - that the concept of adolescence doesn't really exist and merely invented by psychologists.
3 "But it's weird" ... I know, i'm so eloquent.
4 Don't lie, nobody dislikes taco day. even the Vegans i bet are deep down wishing the aromas didn't make them want to cave in and sin just that one time...
5 Unless maybe you're Hugh Hefner in which case I would be amazed if there were ever a time that he didn't have a boner.
6 Recall Adam Sandler's performance in the Wedding singer.
This is an interesting point in life. For the first time i feel like I'm at a pinnacle - the zenith - of my life. But not regarding happiness. I'd say it's more in the context of interestingness.1
I feel like I'm at a crossroads. Not a fork in the road, cause that implies only one source. A crossroads, however, you can reach by many different starting paths. And now there're many ways to go. I view college as the fusion point of "adolescence" and adulthood (I put adolescence in quotes for those of you inventionalists2 out there). Ideas and plans for our occupational futures have long been crystalizing as we form the habits of (ahem) responsible people. But it's weird...3
At the end of last year (as in the end of last spring semester) there was excitement, a sort of spark. By now comfortable in our new homes at college we now looked forward to another beginning. With a fair amount of extablished friends we're ready for more - more fun, more curiosity, more college. GIVE ME A SECOND HELPING! Just like those tacos you wait ten minutes in line for at the cafeteria4, the ingredients that make up the college semester are some stale, most unhealthy, but taken simultaneously form an irresistable...mess.
Despite these fermenting feelings, no feeling or emotion lasts forever.5 You get settled and comfortable with the college life and it loses its novelty. (I could be trite and quote the song Shimmer. But I won't; you're welcome.) Once those butterflies turn into stomach ulcers the magic seems to fade. It's like when your family takes you to Disney World for the second time. And you feel the same disappointment when your school mascot takes off his headpiece as you did when your parents told you that wasn't really Mickey Mouse you got your picture taken with. LIES!
When your second year is over, you realize how much you've accomplished (I can't believe I broke the record for the chugging contest, either). But seriously, it's hard to fathom that [for most people] half of your classes are done. Most sophomores are moving out of the dorms for good. Despite being packed in tighter than an internment camp, the perpetual musk of beer and asbestos emanating from the carpeting, military-protocol security measures, and the pragmatic vigilance of the R.A.s, most people DID create memories in these places. And it's kind of, well, funny... to say good-bye to friends, some of whom may be moving 'cross town, or even going abroad or completely transferring. I'm sure there are tons of people who "can't wait to egt out of the shitholes," but as for the Emo saps like me it's hard not to place a value on our lives and on our memories. And I have a feeling a lot more people are with me than would readily admit. After all, it can be disconcerting to move on. With every breath we add a gossamer layer of sentimentality to those brick walls. Hopefully, we can all look back with a satisfied sense of pride and generativity.
I have a feeling that the coming of the second summer is a point of maximum reminiscence; it's impossible to deny that we've all grown and matured together, symbiotically. I don't think we know it yet, but this might be the last time we take a look back like this. ...Most of junior year we won't remember, including the two-month period encompassing our 21st birthdays. Senior year, well.... we will be much too preoccupied with our impending futures to muse on the past. Just as in high school, many will be "too good for this place, so done with it."
What sentimentality still lingering will be blocked out in self defense - a self-induced immunity to heartache.
If I could summarize the nature of undergraduate life, I would define it pejoratively yet unabashedly as a suspension of adulthood and an extension of adolescence. Righteous values and honorable virtues so acutely refined as teenagers are left derelict to wither. Until one day (and everybody reaches that day) the mirror reflects a personality vacuous and though maybe not sad, not happy either. Here the concepts and ideals left moribund and neglected in the sake of fun and curiousity are watered back to life and apologized to. And they do indeed grow back. We're lucky our minds are resilient, fecund like a potato - rich in nutrients and able to regenerate with but a little moisture and sincere penitence.
This is growing up. One step out of many. It's finding who you are.
College is so ephemeral, tranisent. But I finally feel grounded. Happy with who I am.
Well, i'm getting tired of typing. And I just reminded myself of something unpleasant (It doesn't have to do with a girl, I swear). So i'm gonna stop here before this post turns into a parallel of "Linda".6
1 oh how I love the elasticity of the English language; I doubt that's a word. Even if I think of a better word i'm not replacing it because of its sheer literary effect.
2 Inventionalists assert that adolescence is not a biologically separate phase of development but a period of growth only characterized by society's influences - that the concept of adolescence doesn't really exist and merely invented by psychologists.
3 "But it's weird" ... I know, i'm so eloquent.
4 Don't lie, nobody dislikes taco day. even the Vegans i bet are deep down wishing the aromas didn't make them want to cave in and sin just that one time...
5 Unless maybe you're Hugh Hefner in which case I would be amazed if there were ever a time that he didn't have a boner.
6 Recall Adam Sandler's performance in the Wedding singer.