My favorite things to do are stumbleupon, youtube, facebook, wikipedia, google and watch tv online with my friends. I like going through webpages of recipes and funny videos and absorbing useless factoids. I don't even really pay much attention to the news. I also like board-games and knitting. This is at least partly because I live on a frozen island of darkness-which discourages much activity. But still. I just feel like nothing I do is very valuable.
I would like to say that my school experience is a product of my high school experience; which consisted of cramming daily and not getting much satisfaction or remembering anything very important. Any random European man, woman or child off the street can probably tell you more about American history, plus their country's history, plus the current political situation in half the world's countries than I can. I know, however, that I should just create the school experience I want. At least that's what my mom would say. However, I think it's entirely possible that I just don't really like school. School is stressful. It's full of deadlines, lots of work and endless readings. And it's not like everything you read you can take a passing interest in: you have to really study everything because it's all new information that may seem strange and unintuitive. In short, it's exhausting.
All my life I've always been told that I "don't need to worry about my major too much." My mom is finishing her undergrad now and I get the sense that my dad didn't really take school seriously until he went to law school. It was always understood that I would go to college and that mom and dad would pay for it. But: "don't worry about what you study, you have your whole life to figure out what you're going to do" is the motto that has more-or-less been drilled into me. The truth though, is that, while I enjoy what I study while I'm in class, my enjoyment is a short-lived, jeopardy-trivia kind of interest. I wish I did worry more about what I do. I would like to do something I take pride in, have a routine I like, have friends, have fun, fall in love, travel, be involved in my community... I know that's all for the future, but right now I feel my time would be better spent honing some interesting skill in a trade school, or living in some exotic place helping people or working. But I'm afraid that I'm going to get too old and feel like I need to hurry up and work so I can marry and have kids while I'm young. There is so much I want to do while I'm still free from all that!
But I'm in school. And I know I should be grateful for this incredible, relatively rare privilege.
Maybe my problem is that I'm getting used to having friends. Everyone else I know who has struggled in school has either suffered from a lack of intelligence or discipline- the latter often the result of just hangin' out. I have never really 'just hung out.' I've never really had people, besides my family, really love to hang out with me. And, incredibly, I love to be with these same people. I feel so, so phenomenally lucky.
So... I guess it's best to have friends and be immature right at home. And if you can't do that because you're too mature, go to boarding school to get away from home and hope you'll make friends there. And if you don't make friends there, good luck to adjusting to your life if you ever do make friends. Deep-down I am happy to be here because even though I don't like school, if I weren't here I would never have met my wonderful friends.
