500 Words

"Treat my first like my last, and my last like my first.
And my thirst is the same - as when I came
It's my joy and my tears and the laughter it brings me
It's my ev-er-y-thing" - Jay Z

12-3
500 more words is difficult to write at 1:30 a.m. and I don't believe I've made my argument clear yet. I am nocturnal and this paper is easy, but I am bubbling with frustration. I think I am angry with myself and I need a 2 a.m. conversation with that lover I don't have. Sometimes I catch myself, like a little girl. Because there is nothing more to worry about than finances, lovers, braces, licenses, plane tickets... nothing life-changing, nothing bad, but the mind has to be conquered, taken up, I suppose, by something. I feel bad for the people I crush on, for a day or two, I feel bad for people who in turn are crushing...
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12-9/12-10
Another day of classes, 4 papers... world traveling and then senior year. An education and an Anthropology Seminar/ Independent study project. Kids, minorities, boys (boy culture), poverty... how to mesh that into a senior thesis? Exciting but challenging and frustrating... that pattern is ringing in my head. It needs to be true. It needs to have all those components. It needs to be thorough and something I'm proud of. There are questions that I NEED to know more about and there are 100 pages to write something noteworthy and passionate for the first time in my life. I am paranoid. What if I don't graduate in May 2011? Sometimes as a junior, I question why I spent my first 1 1/2 picking a major I felt dispassionate about and then taking classes to fulfill it? I'm now stuck in a position where everything comes down to Junior and Senior year and though I love the classes I'm taking and will take; there's no breathing room. Everything comes down to when the classes are over in May and the grades come, everything.

In 18 months, if I don't go to graduate school, (there's another bag of worms I haven't even opened), I'm going to be a working adult in the world. Naive, crazy me. And I'm petrified that I won't find a job that matches my passion or puts to use the important knowledge and lessons I've gained from this college. I know that's where my angst, my nostalgia for companionship and that desire to talk certain boys to death come from.

I'm not in love. I'm not in lust. I'm not even interested but I fear transition. The task of asking a post-graduate to make a person out of him/herself and put his/her passion to use is daunting. A daunting task is more daunting when approached alone... that's where the fear is really deprived from. Sadly, maybe, probably I'm not interested in a person for the person himself... I'm interested in being in college and having my own example of having something successful work out so that it provides hope for after college. If I go to college, surrounded by brilliant minority men and nothing results from it... then what hope and experiences can I draw from when I'm in the world, thinking (and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy) that I'm going to have to fight the world by myself: a minority girl with a strange name who NEEDS to become a woman and start giving back to her parents instead of depending on them for everything.

My intentions are selfish. I can be such a selfish bitch sometimes. Maybe friendships will result, I don't know, I feel bad for those even thinking about thinking about me and obviously I feel bad for those I think about. It's twisted but I think I make it that way--- much more complicated than it should be.

The other part of the angst comes from my wish that I would've grabbed hold of more opportunities earlier. I'm growing up and really learning to love myself, appreciate myself, understand myself and exude the confidence, cockiness, and people skills that I've hid until at least 19 or 20 years of age. I love people. I love caring about people and I love the mere act of expressing myself with people. (The "live for the moment" kind of love and understanding... the "I care about people and people know that I care about people but I'm gonna keep in real and not be mushy and over-sentimental" kinds of relationships because, again, I'm probably not sentimental.)Instead of working for the Echo next year, I think this is what I'll end my college career working on. I want to be part of multi-culturalism on campus whether through the Pugh Center or other avenues, I want to live in a normal dorm that doesn't need to be quiet or substance free, I'm trained to lead a Campus Conversation on Race discussion group, I want to be a community advisor and continue to work with children. I want to be (and am) that college student who came into this community a little iffy about who she was and to leave it a more secure and better person. I must leave Colby with some contribution because my presence had an impact on this school.

The angst comes from the fact that it's all coming true but it's also all going away so soon, and relationships, by definition, are short and limited in college. In a week, I'll say good bye to most of these seniors for good. The senior class full of the leaders and the unique voices of this school, people who've really found themselves and are so strong and charismatic, the students who I look up to. They've set a high standard for the (iffy) junior class to follow-- I'm so happy for them but concurrently it's nice to have them around and I wish I had more time to know them and learn from them. Tomorrow's (today's) classes are the last and the realization is actually pulling at my heartstrings more than I thought it would.

So this is where my strange angst comes from.