The Lowdown on College

...high school wasn't my best time.

The truth is that college can be super busy, it just depends on how you play it. For instance, I've passed up on countless student events/clubs/activities simply because there is nothing I love better than as few commitments as possible. That's not to say I don't have commitments. But the thing is that I'm here to get my education over with as quickly as possible and as A-plus as possible, and I don't want anything to hinder that. What I'm not here for is 1) friendship, or 2) a good time. Those things may or may not just come on the side whether you want them or not.

Last semester my free time really made me depressed because I wasn't motivated to do anything with it besides watch TV and pretend it didn't bother me that the only people I ever talked to were my roommate's friends. But all of a sudden last month I came to the realization that I can use my free time to become the person I want to be. And that it doesn't matter if I'm a lazy butt, because I'm fully aware that being a lazy butt is only fun for a few hours before it starts being a real downer.

So I started going to the gym, doing yoga at the same time as homework, writing some short stories, studying Korean in earnest, and playing piano again.

And now I'm busy.

There are a lot of other things I'd like to be doing, like going to the student dance club thing that they have every Wednesday morning, and finding someone to draw with, but I don't really have time left over, and if I made time, I'd feel like I wasn't giving enough time to the other things and stretching myself over too many things. My point is, even though you've got a lot of stuff that you want to do, like dancing and acting and Korean and all that stuff, you might have to tighten your belt and drop a hobby just so you have time to really explore the hobbies that are more important/convenient to you.

The most important thing is not taking your education for granted. Even though it sometimes sucks that school takes 12 years to get through, the fact is that without all twelve years you'd probably be at a pretty big disadvantage in the world. Sometimes school really feels like a chore but if it gets you closer to where and who you want to be in the world, then there's no reason to be resentful of it, especially since getting through high school isn't something that everyone in the world gets to do, no matter how much they want to. The longer I'm at college, the more I realize what a huge privilege it is to be here. College isn't really the utopian educational community that high school teachers make it out to be, but the fact still remains that what I learn here will likely benefit me for the rest of my life, whether it's academic or just social. High school is the same way. You can't live with it, but you sure as shoes can't live without it.

I mean, you can live without it, it's just not very easy to.

To be honest, I wish I'd taken advantage of my high school years like you are, going to dance and acting classes and stuff. I also wish I'd tried a little harder in school because, dang, I didn't really understand the purpose of school back then, and I just sort of pranced through high school with an idiot grin on my face. Sorry, Mom.

Anyway for some reason I was feeling reminiscent today so sorry if I came off preachy or whatever. I mean, you just can't deny that Spanish is going to be way more useful in life than Korean will ever be.

-Amy

P.S. I am doing a little project that involves a little bit of Japanese but it is harder than I expected. Since I'm not going to learn the alphabet or anything (I only have room for two alphabets in my mind at the moment), phonetically memorizing the phrases I need is not very easy. Man.