(no subject)
'It's Impossible To Walk In This Muck!'
(/begin rant)
(Please ignore all prior entries in which I was optimistic about college. Don't worry, I'm still going to finish, this is just a nessesary rant to let off steam.)
College is like a giant holding tank for mal-formed people trying to figure out their lives and shape themselves. It's like where the world tosses twenty-somethings to sort their shit out before they come into the "real world" and fuck everything up with their original points of view and unbattered spirit. First you must learn all the rules of this supposed "real world", which doesn't include optimism or tolerance. The real world is no place for experimentation. Learn the inner construct of the American Dream and how to get it-get a job-get a wife-pay off your loans so you can buy a house-have some kids-save up money so you can send them to college. And thus the cycle starts over again.
I am very put off by this pattern.
I dislike college. I know some people have had wonderful experiences with college; I have just not been one of them.
For me it feels like entrapment. Like I'm in stasis waiting and clawing and ready to start my life. Some sort of social responsibility I feel holds me here. Maybe to my parents. Maybe to the world. Maybe to this so-called American Dream, which my whole life I've wanted absolutely nothing to do with-but am conditioned to slave over. How will I afford my sterling silver appliances in my upscale housing unit if I don't get a degree and a good job?
My college experience may be tainted by the fact that I'm attending university for entirely the wrong thing. If I were allowed to take classes in what actually interested me and still turn out a receipt (degree) for my time spent here I would be overjoyed.
Despite it, I must admit I've learned very little in college. My knowledge of the world has all been outsourced by life experience, travel and my own exploration of things.
Once again, all of this probably has to do with the fact I attend an arts college.
It's very tricky to say one can teach art to anyone. If you're clueless on self-expression, it's doubtful paying someone two hundred dollars a minute will help you find that path. Though I suppose if anything, you'll end up with a better knowledge of words like composition and gradient. Which is important, if you don't have it at all.
In the past year, four professors have told me that I should be a writer.
Which would have been very useful about $20,000 ago.
College has become the place I come back to when I've run out of ideas otherwise.
It is safety.
Really boring, oppressive safety.
Somebody please give me a real reason it's important for me to stay here.
My college experience has not been an exploration and journey to find out all the things I want to do, it's pretty much reinforced and directed me away from all the things I DO NOT want to do.
Which I suppose in the end is still knowledge, and knowledge, especially about oneself is very important and powerful.
It was very expensive self-awareness.
I'd like to say I don't regret the time I've spent here at school, but I think I'm split on the matter.
I would have learned a lot more with seventeen dollars, a backpack and a train ticket in Europe.
The disclaimer is as such: This is my life experience. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know this is how and what I learn. I am lucky I've had the oppurtunity to experience college at all. College is very good for a lot of people. They learn and grow and manifest into whole people that emerge, ready to take on the world. I feel I've been ready to emerge for about three years now and college has been the one thing holding me back from doing that.
Well, that's not entirely stated correctly.
It's not college; it's fear of emerging without a college degree. People instill a sort of fear of god in you about trying to take on the world without that minute piece of paper, declaring that yes, you have paid a lot of money, and yes you do grasp mounds of useful knowledge now. We enter high school convinced that no college will take us without adequate grades and we enter college convinced that a college degree is the only way to get a job. And you have to get a job, so you can get a wife and have children and a house and family vacations to Disneyland and the Hoover Dam.
It infuriates me I fell for it this long.
Though.
I guess for me it's more the fear of being a waitress my entire life, because this entire society is programmed to think that without this tiny piece of paper declaring you..ve obtained smarts, you are incapable.
I've been lucky enough in life to experience more then most in an entire life.
I should be able to trade that in for credit.
It also is compounded by the fact I am in Savannah, Ga. I won..t even start down that path, but this city is a black hole. I..ve often compared it to stew. Where people never boil, but rather float around until they are all the same unrecognizable mush.
I am not mush.
I don't belong in stew at all.
I'm a strawberry.
You don't put strawberries in stew.
This metaphor could go on an on, but I'll save you the image of me being turned into jam and finding my other half; who is an adoring peice of toast, and just shut up.
(/end rant)
(/begin rant)
(Please ignore all prior entries in which I was optimistic about college. Don't worry, I'm still going to finish, this is just a nessesary rant to let off steam.)
College is like a giant holding tank for mal-formed people trying to figure out their lives and shape themselves. It's like where the world tosses twenty-somethings to sort their shit out before they come into the "real world" and fuck everything up with their original points of view and unbattered spirit. First you must learn all the rules of this supposed "real world", which doesn't include optimism or tolerance. The real world is no place for experimentation. Learn the inner construct of the American Dream and how to get it-get a job-get a wife-pay off your loans so you can buy a house-have some kids-save up money so you can send them to college. And thus the cycle starts over again.
I am very put off by this pattern.
I dislike college. I know some people have had wonderful experiences with college; I have just not been one of them.
For me it feels like entrapment. Like I'm in stasis waiting and clawing and ready to start my life. Some sort of social responsibility I feel holds me here. Maybe to my parents. Maybe to the world. Maybe to this so-called American Dream, which my whole life I've wanted absolutely nothing to do with-but am conditioned to slave over. How will I afford my sterling silver appliances in my upscale housing unit if I don't get a degree and a good job?
My college experience may be tainted by the fact that I'm attending university for entirely the wrong thing. If I were allowed to take classes in what actually interested me and still turn out a receipt (degree) for my time spent here I would be overjoyed.
Despite it, I must admit I've learned very little in college. My knowledge of the world has all been outsourced by life experience, travel and my own exploration of things.
Once again, all of this probably has to do with the fact I attend an arts college.
It's very tricky to say one can teach art to anyone. If you're clueless on self-expression, it's doubtful paying someone two hundred dollars a minute will help you find that path. Though I suppose if anything, you'll end up with a better knowledge of words like composition and gradient. Which is important, if you don't have it at all.
In the past year, four professors have told me that I should be a writer.
Which would have been very useful about $20,000 ago.
College has become the place I come back to when I've run out of ideas otherwise.
It is safety.
Really boring, oppressive safety.
Somebody please give me a real reason it's important for me to stay here.
My college experience has not been an exploration and journey to find out all the things I want to do, it's pretty much reinforced and directed me away from all the things I DO NOT want to do.
Which I suppose in the end is still knowledge, and knowledge, especially about oneself is very important and powerful.
It was very expensive self-awareness.
I'd like to say I don't regret the time I've spent here at school, but I think I'm split on the matter.
I would have learned a lot more with seventeen dollars, a backpack and a train ticket in Europe.
The disclaimer is as such: This is my life experience. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know this is how and what I learn. I am lucky I've had the oppurtunity to experience college at all. College is very good for a lot of people. They learn and grow and manifest into whole people that emerge, ready to take on the world. I feel I've been ready to emerge for about three years now and college has been the one thing holding me back from doing that.
Well, that's not entirely stated correctly.
It's not college; it's fear of emerging without a college degree. People instill a sort of fear of god in you about trying to take on the world without that minute piece of paper, declaring that yes, you have paid a lot of money, and yes you do grasp mounds of useful knowledge now. We enter high school convinced that no college will take us without adequate grades and we enter college convinced that a college degree is the only way to get a job. And you have to get a job, so you can get a wife and have children and a house and family vacations to Disneyland and the Hoover Dam.
It infuriates me I fell for it this long.
Though.
I guess for me it's more the fear of being a waitress my entire life, because this entire society is programmed to think that without this tiny piece of paper declaring you..ve obtained smarts, you are incapable.
I've been lucky enough in life to experience more then most in an entire life.
I should be able to trade that in for credit.
It also is compounded by the fact I am in Savannah, Ga. I won..t even start down that path, but this city is a black hole. I..ve often compared it to stew. Where people never boil, but rather float around until they are all the same unrecognizable mush.
I am not mush.
I don't belong in stew at all.
I'm a strawberry.
You don't put strawberries in stew.
This metaphor could go on an on, but I'll save you the image of me being turned into jam and finding my other half; who is an adoring peice of toast, and just shut up.
(/end rant)