Category Archives: life

Dreaming

Posted on by
14

Imagine for a moment spending five years of your life dreaming, and working for that dream to become a reality. You lose your mind studying, make sacrifices, and mentally torture yourself each time you mess up. And then your dream finally materializes.

That’s what I did. I wanted to go to Northwestern. I did everything and anything I could. Took classes I hated so much they made me cry, quit my favorite activity for a prestigious summer program, abandoned all attempts at having a social life, and studied till my eyes bled. And got in.

And then…then I got there. My dream school. Northwestern. I had a wardrobe full of purple and a heart full of hope. There I was, in the beautiful city by the lake and my top-choice college with its top-ranked journalism school. This was it. I was going to become better, meet new people, learn, grow.

And. I. Hated. It.

It’s taken me this long to admit it, but it’s the truth–I hate my dream school.

Don’t get me wrong. The classes are pretty interesting. The professors are great. The campus is gorgeous. Chicago is awesome. There’s a beach here. Food’s good. Blahblah.

But let’s face it. I fit in here about as much as an Eskimo in the Sahara. I don’t get these people and I don’t feel like a part of anything. I’ve tried and tried joining clubs, but I just don’t feel engaged.

I hate the horrible weather, and I hate the way people expect me to spend my weekends getting so drunk I throw up. I hate the cliques. I hate the people who post on College ACB, demeaning others, sometimes by name. (Don’t believe me? http://collegeacb.com/sb.php?school=NW) And the people who tell their girlfriends to dress better so their stupid frat brother friends will accept them.

I hate the way student organizations are really just glorified social clubs, and if you show up without a friend, you’ll leave without one, too. I hate the way nobody ever talks about what they’re learning. I never hear anybody being passionate about biology, English, anthropology, or physics. Just movies, TV shows, parties, friends, drinking. I hate the way nobody reads books unless they’re assigned for a class.

Now before someone posts on here telling me how wrong I am and how I’m just an antisocial nerd who needs to get out more, I know that there are plenty of exceptions to what I just described. There always are. But the fact is that the prevailing culture here accepts and embraces it, and people like me who don’t like it tend to stay quiet.

For once in my life, I thought I’d be happy. I thought it’d be wonderful to get something I’d worked so hard for. After all, the best part of dreaming is making your dreams come true, and that’s what I did. On my own. I was so proud of myself, for once. I felt lucky that out of so many people I knew, I was one of the few who actually got to go to their dream schools.

But I guess fate tricked me once again.

This isn’t my place. All that work was for nothing. Those sacrifices? Meaningless. All for a dream that I would soon grow to hate. It might’ve been good for my brain (though most days I’m not even sure about that), but it was awful for my soul.

Now I’m stuck in a place I don’t belong, and it’s all my fault. That’s what you get for dreaming. I should’ve just let things happen to me, sat by and gotten B’s, gone to Ohio State like a good girl. Then I wouldn’t have to face the humiliation of achieving my dream and hating it.

I don’t know what it is. Everybody loves college. Everybody loves Northwestern. Something’s wrong with me and I don’t know what it is or how to fix it. Maybe there’s a gene everyone but me has. Maybe some crucial part of my brain is malformed. Trust me, if I could just take a magic pill that makes me normal, I would.

I’ve pissed away my entire freshman year trying and failing to make this work. I lie every single time someone asks me how I’m enjoying my Dream School. I say it’s wonderful. It’s not.

But at least I’m almost a quarter of the way through this torture.

My advice? Don’t waste your time. I learned in my sociological analysis class that even the most sound theories should not necessarily be implemented as policy because there are, essentially, a million ways in which things can go wrong. Same goes for individual lives. I’ve hit on one of those million ways, and now I regret ever having dared to dream.

Now I know I can’t trust my instincts, and I’m wondering why I should even bother working hard when I inevitably end up hating whatever it is I worked for. In high school, which I couldn’t wait to get out of, I at least had friends and a loving family to come home to every day. College is like high school without those saving graces.

I realize already that if any Northwestern people saw this, they would probably comment all over this saying that I’m an idiot and how dare I post this and what the fuck is wrong with me. Don’t believe me? Check out the comment section of any opinion article on the Daily Northwestern’s website. Enthusiastic suppression of dissenting viewpoints is as much de rigueur on this campus as money and skinny jeans.

In the meantime, these endless lonely hours have led me to do some research. My new dream school has the nation’s number-one psychology department. It has a beautiful campus and beautiful weather. I’d never have to wear the ugly down coat I practically lived in this entire winter. My new dream school is known for its lack of a party scene and its preponderance of nerds–people like me. It’s located near a city that celebrates diversity and inclusiveness, not snobbism and pretentiousness.

But my new dream school is Stanford, and even if I managed to get in–1% acceptance rate for transfer applications–it’s much too far away.

And besides, I think I’ve learned my lesson about dreams.

“Don’t Be Afraid to Give Up the Good for the Great”

Posted on by
1

[Sometimes I like to send myself emails using FutureMe. I get them a year later and instantly remember what it was like to be me a year ago.]

Dear FutureMe,

Yesterday it happened just like in the dream I kept having over the summer.

I was motionless on the sideline, in front of a wall of music that was staring me in the face. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t run out there and be with them, and I couldn’t turn back time and change my decision, and I couldn’t cry and risk everyone seeing.

Three small miracles changed it from the dream version, though. It was daytime and not night, I wasn’t alone, and I didn’t feel the overwhelming sadness.

Continue reading →

What Going to College Taught Me

Posted on by
Reply

I was only a few days into my first year of college when I realized that my experience was going to be very different from that of everyone else I know.

On Facebook, my friends all had statuses like “so-and-so FUCKING LOVES COLLEGE” and “so-and-so is going to my first college party tonight :)” and “so-and-so is having the time of her lifeeee.” I, on the other hand, was still sitting in my room reading novels and obsessively downloading music that I found on Pandora, and, truth be told, I was–and still am–perfectly happy to call this my life.

College. We’re told this will be the best four years of our lives. We’re told we can become anyone we want to become here. If you were the shy, invisible nerd in high school, you can be a party guy here. If you were a stressed-out overachiever, you can be the cool, laid-back chick here. You can meet dozens of people a day. You can join dozens of student groups. You can get up at noon and stay out all day and party all night and arrive back at your dorm in a drunken stupor at 4:30 in the morning to find that your roommate hasn’t even come home yet. COLLEGE, BABY!

Best of all, you never really have to let people know who you really are. You’re going to be perfect. Always smiling, always social, never stressed. “Alone time”? What’s that? Who needs alone time when you can have a hundred best friends?

We’re told that college will be a complete change from everything we’ve known before. Everything is supposed to change. Where you live, what you study, how you study it, who you spend your time with, who you date, how you date them (helloooo hook-ups!), what you eat, how you stay healthy, how you exercise, what you do for fun, what books you read, what movies you watch, what music you listen to, what you wear, how you organize your stuff, what you see as your future, where you shop, blahblahblah. Everything changes. Most importantly, YOU change.

Or do you?

Maybe I’m jumping the gun a bit here (though I tend to be right about these things ), but I’m not changing. Aside from the physical changes in my lifestyle, I’m the same person I always was–and that’s a person who would rather drink tea in my room than beer at some frat, read a book alone rather than watch a movie with fifty other people, and go to an interesting class rather than a crazy party.

Indeed, the most profound way that college has affected me so far is that I’ve finally understood a fundamental truth about myself–I am shamelessly, immutably antisocial.

See, I didn’t realize this while I was in high school because there were so many excuses. I didn’t have a license. There was nothing to do where I lived. I hadn’t met any people I could enjoy myself with. School took up all my time. My parents didn’t want me out late.

But now that’s all different. You don’t need a license, and there’s tons of stuff to do. Everyone here is friendly and smart. School doesn’t take up nearly as much time. My parents have no idea how late I’m out. All those restrictions are gone.

And that’s when, putting on my shoes and coat some Saturday evening, I suddenly realize that I have absolutely no desire to leave my room. At all.

Is something wrong with me? Was I just born with a genetic defect? Has the “OMG I’m in college so I should partyyyyy” part of my brain just shriveled up and died?

Possibly. Or maybe high school killed it, because going out and having fun really wasn’t an option, so I learned how to enjoy my life almost completely alone. I don’t need friends to be happy, I don’t need parties to be happy. All I really need is a steady supply of books and a boyfriend–even if he’s five hours away. (You’d think that the fact that I only see my boyfriend several times a year now would spark my desire to find alternate sources of social interaction, but somehow it really doesn’t.)

So naturally I feel extremely out of place, and it’s not because I picked the wrong college.

It’s because I just don’t belong in college, period.

In fact, freaks like me don’t belong anywhere at all.

If nothing else, that’s what these past few weeks have taught me, and it looks like I’ll have to live with that knowledge for four more years.

The Kindness of Strangers

Posted on by
1

Another reason I got this blog (other than to give me an outlet to complain about the status of my other blog) is to write about my life a bit more, because it bothers me that I hardly ever write in my journal anymore. And Xanga, obviously, is definitely dead. And Facebook is just too cluttered with stupid quizzes and other junk that I get yelled at for complaining about, because apparently, if I don’t want to know what sex position or color of underwear you are, I am a selfish bitch who doesn’t care about other people.

(Does that make any sense to you? Because it really doesn’t make any sense to me.)

Anyways, the particular event that I most want to write about at this moment is my own personal introduction into the world of stupid drivers, airbags, and kind strangers, which occurred yesterday on a lovely intersection in Kettering, Ohio, as I drove my little brother (seven years old) and my sister (four) home from daycamp.

Namely, somebody decided that it would be a good idea to begin making their left turn directly into the line of motion of my car, after I had already entered the intersection, while the traffic light was still yellow and not red, and without stopping or slowing down significantly as they approached an intersection in which, technically, pretty much everybody but them had the right of way. Including, obviously, me, currently traveling at about 45 miles per hour, about 5 over the speed limit.

As I noticed the presence of a vehicle seemingly oblivious of the fact that it was headed directly into a collision with myself, I slammed on the breaks, already knowing that I was, to put it succinctly, fucked. I collided into the offending vehicle with the upper left side of my car and got spun into a conveniently-located telephone pole, which, had I been going faster, would certainly have shattered my windshield and probably killed (or at least injured substantially) me, since it was right in front of my face. My car slammed into the pole. The airbags exploded. There was smoke and a really, really weird smell in the air. My face started stinging.

Then my car started rolling backward, but luckily I had the presence of mind to put it in park, turn it off, and get both of my siblings out and onto the sidewalk. My sister was crying. I calmed her down. My brother, being a little boy, was excited. I let him marvel at the fire truck and ambulance that quickly arrived. I began calling both of my parents, but they were on their lunch breaks and didn’t have their phones with them.

At this point, my adrenaline-fueled energy began to subside, and I noticed my bleeding toe. Then I realized that I wasn’t sure if the crash was my fault or not. The woman in the other car was getting strapped onto a gurney. That’s when I really started crying.

I was sitting on the sidewalk and freaking out when I felt hands on my shoulders and heard a woman’s voice telling me that it was okay, that she saw what happened and it wasn’t my fault, and that everything would be fine and the police would get there soon. I turned around to see who this angel was. She looked to be nearing the end of her middle age, but had two daughters, both younger than me. The two girls immediately took over watching my siblings, buying them a bottle of water, stroking my sister’s hair, and letting my brother excitedly show off his Nintendo DS to them.

Over the next hour or two (I have no idea at ALL how long it was), the woman stayed with us, talking to the police, keeping me company, and waiting until my dad could get there and take us home. Her daughters helped me get everything out of the crashed car and put it into my dad’s. I kept telling them that if they need to leave, they should go ahead, but all three of them insisted that they’d only been going to the library, so they weren’t in any hurry.

The whole story had a happy ending. Other than my cut toe, there were no injuries among me and my siblings. The woman in the other car had asthma and was being sent to the hospital for that, so she was fine. She got a citation for an illegal left turn. I got praised heavily by the woman who stayed with me and by the police officer for keeping a cool head and getting my siblings out of the car immediately.

My poor car got sent to the shop, but it’ll be fine. Only one corner of it was wrecked, anyway. It could’ve been so much worse for everybody involved.

But, most importantly, I met three people who made a difference in my life and further cemented an already-firm belief of mine that most people have more good in them than bad. It gave me hope.