I screamed over and over again
It is amazing how the life of a student can turn from promise and potential to a death wish for demolition. I happen to face that situation right now, while sitting at my computer, typing away at my memoirs. I survived my first two years, how about that? Of course, in a way, I have found myself again. The sex on the brain has returned the cursing, the disgust, the yelling, and the uncouthness that I had lost while I was but a wee lass has returned. And it returned with a vengeance.
How one can perceive their freshman year to the point where it is just a fact of life, and not a self-centered media event, where one can say, “Hey, looky, looky, looky, I’m in college, I’m living the high life, I rock! You suck,” is beyond me. When I was in junior high school, I was thinking about college, and how an education like that would be. When you are young, you have to remember that picking the right college is a matter of convenience, intangibles, and environment.
I will divert from the college situation for a moment to talk about preparing for that. It seems that everybody is focused, and stressed about grades. Everybody wants to push him/herself too much just to please their parents, and their family, and their background in which they were raised. In other words, they want to put themselves on a low pedestal. When I remember how I had a 4.0 GPAs at my high school, I wonder, “Am I really that smart?” I made all A’s and just sat on my ass all the time. Now, some people may think this one way and respond with, “Well, if you get a 4.0 GPA in high school, all AP classes, scholarships a bunch of universities, you are sure to be the best leaders of our nation.” And I say to that, “No, no, no, no, no, that is not true.” Why? There are a lot of reasons why this is not the case.
First of all, it doesn’t matter if you graduated from Harvard, Community College of Philadelphia, or even the School of Hard Knocks, if you don’t do well where you work, get good raises, get the rhythm going, make everyone satisfied and proud, it’s going to hurt you. This seems already beaten, but there have been many cases in which “perfect” high-school students unravel in college (I will explain college later, and the pitfalls). And there have been cases in which Ivy League-educated politicians are corrupt. They do not like their job, simply because they want to do it for the money. That’s why you see politicians getting on the news for money laundering this, racketeering that, embezzlement this, scandal this, impeachment that. Take, for example, some of the recent Presidents of Mexico prior to Vicente Fox Quesada’s long-awaited usurpation, if I may call it that. I don’t know about Carlos Salinas de Gortari, but I know already that he was badly despised by his people. That’s why he went to exile. Then you have Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, an Ivy League trying to swim in a world that demands more attention to people who are nowhere near his political standing. He couldn’t survive, because he was at an unfair advantage.
Look at the history of our presidents now. A huge number of them are graduates of an Ivy League school, generally Harvard or Yale. Bill Clinton was a Harvard graduate, while our current President, George W. Bush, was an Elitist. Both had to survive the tests of governing the most powerful nation in the world. Bush is still trying to pass the test, after 9-11 and the Iraq attack. Look at Governor Gray Davis, a Stanford and Columbia grad. He’s trying to fix our economy, but is only hurting it, especially our education, though the budget cuts.
These people that I mentioned are examples of how getting the job done the right way could have saved their reputation. They are only doing it for the money. The people have been brainwashed, in that respect. To be the best, work hard, and live the American dream…that has been tainted.
Anyway, back to high school. The commencement ceremony, after analyzing the situation, was nothing more than just a mere handing of a diploma holder (with no diploma, boo!), some corny songs, and some speeches. Later that night, I had a graduation party at Roxy. Apparently, that was a bit of a mistake. For the first few hours, I was having a blast with my party, but midway through, I lost track of my friends, and was completely lost. I couldn’t track them down, because there were so many of them. It was like one of those ecstasy parties that Dennis Rodman hosted. Girls looking like Shakira, having oversized tits, bumping, grinding, humping…as a women’s libber, I felt like they had been downsized to this. (If only I could have had my mouth on one of those…but they wouldn’t allow that there, morons…) But on top of that, I felt I had wasted my time there. By the time I got home, I was basically tired and angry.
Then, I had to head on to the Freshman Experience. You know, in an environment like college, you have to sink or swim in this; no one spoon-feeds you. You have to be committed to getting the information, and getting the work done. That’s when the fun factor starts kicking in. Of course, even though I got a bit of exhaustion and fatigue, I started to find myself again. I had found new friends, and was becoming more social.
Speaking of social events, there was a fire on my floor in my apartment building and it was a classic college bonding moment. I met up with someone that I haven’t had the chance to really talk to this semester. We huddled up in the cold and talked for the whole time, while they put out the fire and cleared the smoke.
In High School I thought I knew all the terrors and annoyances of fire alarms, College proved me wrong. Maybe it has to do with dorm life, or people allowing too much (pot) smoke to accumulate in their rooms, either way I soon learned the true severity of fire alarms.
It is interesting to note that there are usually never any fires.
The fire alarms had a fondness for going off late at night, normally either during the middle of a good party or right when you were drifting off to sleep and have an early morning class. They also go off much more often when it is cold outside. Perhaps because the number of people who smoke inside their rooms increases as the outside temperature decreases?
I shudder to think of the number of times I had to shuffle outside in the middle of the night to 30-degree air. Eventually one learned to take the time to bundle up under several pairs of pants, coats, and a blanket. You also got very close with your dorm mates at this time in the attempt to share body heat.
Now I am getting really random and me thinks it is time to depart.
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