I'd shake your hand, too, anonymous girl from the '60s!
I'd shake your hand, too, anonymous girl from the '60s! This is EXACTLY how I've been feeling, but endured and expressed 40 years ago.
From "WE WANT A UNIVERSITY (DEDICATED TO THE 800), BY THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT," http://www.fsm-a.org/stacks/wewantuniv.html
'The history of rather volcanic emotions which led up to the eruption of the Free Speech Movement did not result from thin air. It came from within us. On November 29 a letter appeared in the New York Times Magazine. It is a beautiful and sad letter from a young girl, and describes well the "volcanic activity" in all of us.
To the Editor:
"I'm a student in the oldest girls' school in the country. I love my school, but your recent article on homework really hit home (Hard Day's Night of Today's Students by Eda J. LeShan). I came to this school not thinking I could even keep up with the work. I was wrong. I can keep up. I can even come out on top. My daily schedule's rough: I get up at 6:30 and have classes from 8:15 to 3:00 and stay in study hall or engage in activities until 5:30. I have majors, plus religion, speech, music, and art once or twice a week. I have gym four times a week. All this I can take. The homework I can't. I work from 3:00 until 5:00 in school.
After dinner I work until midnight or 12:30. In the beginning, the first two weeks or so, I'm fine. Then I begin to wonder just what this is all about: Am I educating myself? I have that one all answered in my mind. I'm educating myself the way THEY want. So I convince myself the real reason I'm doing all this is to prepare myself for what I really want. Only one problem. After four years of this comes four years of college and two of graduate school for me. I know just where I'm going and just what I want, but I'm impatient.
Okay, I can wait. But meanwhile I'm wasting those years of preparation. I'm not learning what I want to learn. I don't care any more whether 2 + 2 = 4 anymore. I don't care about the feudal system. I want to know about life. I want to think and read. When? Over weekends when there are projects and lectures and compositions, plus catching up on sleep.
My life is a whirlpool. I'm caught up in it but I'm not conscious of it. I'm what YOU call living, but somehow I can't find life. Days go by in an instant. I feel nothing accomplished in that instant. So maybe I got an A on that composition I worked on for three hours, but when I get it back I find that A means nothing. It's a letter YOU use to keep me going.
Every day I come in well prepared. Yet I dread every class; my stomach tightens and I sit tense. I drink coffee morning, noon, and night. At night, after my homework I lie in bed and wonder if I've really done it all. Is there something I've forgotten?
At the beginning of the year I'm fine. My friends know me by my smile. Going to start out bright this year. Not going to get bogged down this year. Weeks later I become introspective and moody again. I wonder what I'm doing here. I feel phony, I don't belong. All I want is time; time to sit down and read what I want to read, and think what I want to think.
You wonder about juvenile delinquents. If I ever become one, I'll tell you why it will be so. I feel cramped. I feel like I'm in a coffin and can't move or breathe. There's no air or light. All I can see is blackness and I've got to burst. Sometimes I feel maybe something will come along. Something has to or I'm not worth anything. My life is worth nothing. It's enclosed in a few buildings on one campus; it goes no further. I've got to bust."
NAME WITHHELD
P.S. I wrote this last night at 12:15 and in the light of day I realize this will never reach you.
This letter is probably one of the most profoundly shared expressions of anguish in American life today. It is shared by millions of us.'
From "WE WANT A UNIVERSITY (DEDICATED TO THE 800), BY THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT," http://www.fsm-a.org/stacks/wewantuniv.html
'The history of rather volcanic emotions which led up to the eruption of the Free Speech Movement did not result from thin air. It came from within us. On November 29 a letter appeared in the New York Times Magazine. It is a beautiful and sad letter from a young girl, and describes well the "volcanic activity" in all of us.
To the Editor:
"I'm a student in the oldest girls' school in the country. I love my school, but your recent article on homework really hit home (Hard Day's Night of Today's Students by Eda J. LeShan). I came to this school not thinking I could even keep up with the work. I was wrong. I can keep up. I can even come out on top. My daily schedule's rough: I get up at 6:30 and have classes from 8:15 to 3:00 and stay in study hall or engage in activities until 5:30. I have majors, plus religion, speech, music, and art once or twice a week. I have gym four times a week. All this I can take. The homework I can't. I work from 3:00 until 5:00 in school.
After dinner I work until midnight or 12:30. In the beginning, the first two weeks or so, I'm fine. Then I begin to wonder just what this is all about: Am I educating myself? I have that one all answered in my mind. I'm educating myself the way THEY want. So I convince myself the real reason I'm doing all this is to prepare myself for what I really want. Only one problem. After four years of this comes four years of college and two of graduate school for me. I know just where I'm going and just what I want, but I'm impatient.
Okay, I can wait. But meanwhile I'm wasting those years of preparation. I'm not learning what I want to learn. I don't care any more whether 2 + 2 = 4 anymore. I don't care about the feudal system. I want to know about life. I want to think and read. When? Over weekends when there are projects and lectures and compositions, plus catching up on sleep.
My life is a whirlpool. I'm caught up in it but I'm not conscious of it. I'm what YOU call living, but somehow I can't find life. Days go by in an instant. I feel nothing accomplished in that instant. So maybe I got an A on that composition I worked on for three hours, but when I get it back I find that A means nothing. It's a letter YOU use to keep me going.
Every day I come in well prepared. Yet I dread every class; my stomach tightens and I sit tense. I drink coffee morning, noon, and night. At night, after my homework I lie in bed and wonder if I've really done it all. Is there something I've forgotten?
At the beginning of the year I'm fine. My friends know me by my smile. Going to start out bright this year. Not going to get bogged down this year. Weeks later I become introspective and moody again. I wonder what I'm doing here. I feel phony, I don't belong. All I want is time; time to sit down and read what I want to read, and think what I want to think.
You wonder about juvenile delinquents. If I ever become one, I'll tell you why it will be so. I feel cramped. I feel like I'm in a coffin and can't move or breathe. There's no air or light. All I can see is blackness and I've got to burst. Sometimes I feel maybe something will come along. Something has to or I'm not worth anything. My life is worth nothing. It's enclosed in a few buildings on one campus; it goes no further. I've got to bust."
NAME WITHHELD
P.S. I wrote this last night at 12:15 and in the light of day I realize this will never reach you.
This letter is probably one of the most profoundly shared expressions of anguish in American life today. It is shared by millions of us.'