Up to this month, I would say college was pretty manageable. Of course it also helps that I only go to school twice a week. But I haven’t felt stressed until this month–all because of the upcoming and ominous finals.
I am accustomed to doing a lot of work. In high school, I loaded my schedule with AP/Honors classes. I was always busy juggling my studies with extracurricular activities. But I felt satisfied at the end of the day, knowing that all my hard work would lead me to my desired college. And then life happened: I realized I couldn’t afford to go to my dream college. It was during my senior year when this dawned on me. I looked up at some of my report cards hanging on my wall, the number of books swallowing the whole surface area of my desk, and reminisced about all of my future plans. Then I experienced somewhat of a meltdown, but I wasn’t about to give up. In the midst of the busiest month of my senior year–with AP tests around the corner, a million essays to finish, and so forth–I dedicated whatever was left of my free time to writing a scholarship essay about Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” Even though the contest was open to all juniors around the world, I had this false sense of hope that I would be the victor and be the receiver of the $10,000 prize money. I suppose I was fooling myself out of desperation. Then you can guess what happened next. It was like a big slap on the face, losing at something you sacrificed so much for. Then I got slapped in the face several more times after that. In summation, sh*t happened.
After taking the fall semester off, and blablablablabla…I ended up at Baruch College. It’s bearable and maybe in the future, I’ll be able to say enjoyable. But right now, I just can’t wait for the semester to be over. The highlight of the whole semester was when my English Professor informed me that it is perfectly grammatically correct to start a sentence with “And” or “But.” It’s just hard to enjoy where you are when you want to be somewhere else. “Whatever,” I tell myself, “suck it up.”
