Rant about Amherst
There are days when I simply cannot handle reality. Today was one of those days. This week has been insanely long and full. And I'm so, so frustrated with this school right now. I think I'm going to be spending my entire Thanksgiving break (between the papers and the family time) writing angry letters to President Marx about all the reasons I hate this place and its administration. How the hell am I going to make it through next semester? Maybe I could do it if I just dropped out of everything but class and dance and vagmons. No more Juarez. No more AFA. No more politics. No more crap. But I couldn't do it. I can't back out on commitments I've already made. And I'm more than tied up in this Juarez project now. It really is going to be hard to leave, but I need to.
I'm going to fight my parents on this one, I think. Going abroad for a year, sure it will be rough. It will mean missing my sister's high school graduation. It will mean missing so many of my college friends' graduations. It will mean missing seeing Emily pretty much ever again unless we really work at it. It will mean being away from home for a long, long time, on the other side of the world. But it's the right thing for me to do academically- go to Melbourne and study orgo and biochem and microbiology and immunology and get the technical education they just can't give me here, much as they promise otherwise. And it's the right thing for me to do personally- this place drives me nuts sometimes, and next semester is going to be awful. I will really need to get away. I can't stay for just a semester because the science stuff won't be worth it. And I have this feeling that I'm going to love being there so much I'm not going to want to come back anyway. Not that I don't love it here, some of the time (even most of the time), but... you may or may not know what I mean.
Anyway. I want to make sure that I'm not going abroad just to run away from all that's wrong here. I think right now I'm channeling all my frustrations- personal and political- into hating the problems with this school because I have the best chance of actually fixing something. I can't fix this country. I can't fix myself. But maybe, if I fight hard enough, something will change at Amherst as a result of my having been here. Like maybe they'll stop letting students who commit sexual assault come back after a one-semester "break." Or maybe they'll stop questioning girls who go to Health Services for EC like they're the fucking Inquisition. Or maybe they'll do a better job of helping students not be so bored they feel like their freshman year was a waste of time. Or maybe they'll fix one of the million and one other administrative, beaurocratic problems that drive me nuts here. Because the people are really amazing. And the classes themselves, the ones I've taken, have all been good. And I love my dorm. And it really is pretty here. In other words, they have a lot here to work with. Just a lot of crap getting in the way.
I'm going to fight my parents on this one, I think. Going abroad for a year, sure it will be rough. It will mean missing my sister's high school graduation. It will mean missing so many of my college friends' graduations. It will mean missing seeing Emily pretty much ever again unless we really work at it. It will mean being away from home for a long, long time, on the other side of the world. But it's the right thing for me to do academically- go to Melbourne and study orgo and biochem and microbiology and immunology and get the technical education they just can't give me here, much as they promise otherwise. And it's the right thing for me to do personally- this place drives me nuts sometimes, and next semester is going to be awful. I will really need to get away. I can't stay for just a semester because the science stuff won't be worth it. And I have this feeling that I'm going to love being there so much I'm not going to want to come back anyway. Not that I don't love it here, some of the time (even most of the time), but... you may or may not know what I mean.
Anyway. I want to make sure that I'm not going abroad just to run away from all that's wrong here. I think right now I'm channeling all my frustrations- personal and political- into hating the problems with this school because I have the best chance of actually fixing something. I can't fix this country. I can't fix myself. But maybe, if I fight hard enough, something will change at Amherst as a result of my having been here. Like maybe they'll stop letting students who commit sexual assault come back after a one-semester "break." Or maybe they'll stop questioning girls who go to Health Services for EC like they're the fucking Inquisition. Or maybe they'll do a better job of helping students not be so bored they feel like their freshman year was a waste of time. Or maybe they'll fix one of the million and one other administrative, beaurocratic problems that drive me nuts here. Because the people are really amazing. And the classes themselves, the ones I've taken, have all been good. And I love my dorm. And it really is pretty here. In other words, they have a lot here to work with. Just a lot of crap getting in the way.