Sometimes I wish I can go back in time and change my mistakes. Don’t you wish there is a time machine where you can go back in time? Maybe I’ll invent one when I grow up.  You never know… So let me tell you my story. When I was in 5^th grade, the time where I was very immature, I didn’t know right from wrong. I moved from Georgia back to New York City and I was trying to fit in. If you’re a 10 year old, all you want to do is make friends, lots of friends. So, there was this really sweet girl that was soooooo friendly to me on my first day of class, which is currently my best friend, maybe more than that, she’s like a sister now. But obviously, there was a history we had to go through that made our friendship stronger.  So, you know how girls are sometimes. We’re always passing rumors and stabbing each other’s back. Yeah, I know..how childish right? Well, I bet everyone had one of those times. Anyways, so everything started from jealousy and attention. I was friends with this girl; I’ll just call her Jessica..since I don’t want to use names. I guess she was really jealous of my relationship with my best friend so she lied to me about so many things and basically instigated me; and it worked! I can’t believe I was so stupid to believe it…but I mean, we’re kids…we don’t know better. Plus, I guess I was somewhat a dramatic person. So, basically, it started from that and I hated her more because I saw her flirting with a guy that I had a crush on. It just gave me more reasons to hate her, when it really wasn’t what it seemed. So Jessica and I started on a tour to tell the whole school not to be friends with Lu and surprisingly. Nobody talked to her. She was ostracized by the whole school. The problem didn’t just end there, we tried to scare her and made her give us money, but it was mostly Jessica’s plan. I still had a soft heart. Well…my point of the story was, after two months passed and I realized Jessica was very fake and not a good friend. It just didn’t feel right. I started to miss the old days with my best friend.  I remember it was raining one day and she was outside my balcony asking me to forgive her. Jessica was over my house that time and she kept instigating and I was swaying back and forth. I listened to Jessica and threw my best friend’s hairclip down and balcony and told her to leave. I’ll never forget that day..it was such a depressing moment and I regret what I did. Even after all that, she forgave me when I called her one day because I missed her. I realize I was under the influence and pressure. I guess it was the attention, gossip, all that stupid stuff. I learn to not always go with the crowd. Good friends aren’t always easy to find.

I go to school only to anticipate my departure from it. I often find myself in various classes dozing off, daydreaming, and simply, lost. The movement of my professor’s mouth is vivid, yet the words that come out from it, disperses in the air, and I am left trying to remember what those words were. But that’s not all. How can they expect us to read numerous amounts of pages and understand them? How can they give us an essay due the same day? Maybe these complaints come from my lack of rest. I feel like it gets harder to find time to just sit back and relax. I just want to sleep without my 6 o’clock alarm going off, forcing me up to prepare for what seems to be, a day that’ll never end. I just want to go home and lie down, free from the chains that bound me to textbooks and work. I just want to go out and have fun without worrying when assignments are due. I wonder everyday, what is the meaning of life?

“When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happens.” Now, that was a quote someone wise once said to me. Well actually, I think I read that off the Internet somewhere, but in any case, I’m the type of person who wonders what happens. It’s a scary thing lying awake during one of those sleepless nights for the reason that all you do is stare at the ceiling; such a simple occurrence, yet it really does make all the difference. I like to just lie there and plan out my future, but then my plans and fears start to collaborate and I let it get the best of me. I think to myself, Is that really all to life? Your beginning years are spent educating and prepping yourself in order to get a career when you’re older, which you may or may not enjoy, so that you can support a family, who may or may not appreciate you. That’s the human routine. I guess it’s true what they say; life’s, for lack of a better term, a female dog and then you die, unless you’re one of those “go-getter” types of people who actually made a difference in your lifetime. What have I done lately? Nothing much. Will I be doing anything to change that? Maybe, but who really knows? I don’t, that’s for sure. I won’t know until that period passes. But these are the kinds of thoughts that rattle my brain at night. So I ask, keeping in mind all that I’ve said, What have you done lately?

Vanessa Pereira
FRO LC19
Monologue
 
​When I asked my cousin about her experience in college, she told me that it was really hard, but fun. I’ve only been a college student for about 2 months but I get what she means. When it comes to the difficulty level, it isn’t really the work that is hard, or even the load, it is the act of balancing everything together. Living away from home, not having to worry about parents knowing your every movement or asking for permission to do anything it’ s nice but at the same time we forget to make boundaries for ourselves.
​In my first month, of college, I can’t remember a time when I did homework or studied in my room, at least not before midnight. What I can remember is struggling to finish a paper an hour before class and feeling tremendously tired because I hung out with my roommates until 2 or 3 in the morning. I always put things off and since most of my homework consisted of reading, it was easy for me to put it off and even easier for me to end up with 10 chapters instead of 2 to read the night before a test. Living in the city makes it even harder to focus on school work, since there is always something to do and so many places to shop and eat. Having a roommate who only started school in late September, always wanting to party, or have friends over doesn’t make it any easier.
​Why do I always do this to myself? That’s what I ask myself when I’m cramming for a test the night before or finishing a paper and sending it at exactly the time that it is due. I know that I am easily stressed, even over nothing, yet I continue to procrastinate and leave everything to the last minute. It would be a lot easier if I could just get the assignment and do it as soon as possible, but it is easier said than done, I mean it’s exactly 3:16 a.m. and I still haven’t finished typing this monologue. In high school, it wasn’t a big difference for me, in fact I feel like I had a heavier work load than I do now and I still procrastinated. However, the difference is that I always had teachers who would let us know if we were failing and continuously remind us when things were due and if things were not handed in. Not only that but I also had my parents who would constantly ask me if my work was done. I hardly ever went out during the week, especially since most of my friends didn’t either. Also, knowing that my parents were going to see my report card I made sure that I kept my grades up.
​College is different, not just harder. There is no progress report sent to my parents or teachers who remind us when assignments are due or who tell us if we are failing. It all depends on us. I have to have the motivation for myself to keep up my grades and to make sure that everything gets done. I also have to be the one to realize that maybe it is worth doing things ahead of time, and to decide if I am making the right choice by going out or spending time with friends instead of doing my school work. I realize all of this now as I am saying it, but then again as I am saying this I realize I probably won’t stop procrastinating and stressing myself out.