So, I'm back.

Well, I'm back at Marist.  There's about a foot of snow on the ground.  This is a picture from outside of my window.  (Dad is always telling me I need to add pictures.)  I'm slowly falling back into the swing of things, but everything still feels foreign. Everything looked different, when I moved back into my dorm, the halls and rooms looked bigger and whiter.  Who knows maybe they repainted or maybe it's just because I haven't been here in a month.

Classes began today.  I woke up at 6:50, got out of bed at 6:51.  It wasn't too bad.  After I brushed my teeth I was pretty much awake.  I always love that feeling of waking up early, dawn just breaking on the horizon, the still silence, the feeling that you are waking up before the whole world.  I feel more productive waking up early.  For one, I associate waking up at the crack of dawn with competing in feises, jet setting off on some important trip, or taking a big important test, so at that early hour I always feel special like I'm getting up to do something really important.  Secondly, I have the whole day ahead of me.  The day seems so much longer, because I am awake hours before I normally would be, which could be a double-edged sword for me. It could make this semester less stressful and a lot more productive, but it could also make the days seem a lot slower, and the semester a lot longer. 

My first class of the semester was a core requirement for my communications major: The art of public speaking.  Going into this class I was as nervous as if I was a little school girl (I know ironic because I am, but this isn't my first semester anymore.)  My roommate had the same class last semester.  The professor was always such a bitch to her (excuse my language).  So needless to say I was a little scared, I don't deal well with mean comments.  After meeting him I can say that he seems nice, but at the same time is probably an asshole.  I don't think he means to be, but he is just one of those guys who probably does not have any children, so his criticisms come off a bit crass.  But I do believe that he means for us to do well, and will work with us to help us achieve the grade we deserve.  Luckily for me the class is small.  I would say around twelve all together.  After he went over the syllabus, he had us pair up, and get to know our partner, then give a one minute speech on our classmate.  I did it without stuttering.  I can now check off my first time speaking in class. Task complete.  Now I just have to give four or five more speeches.  But since the class is small I'm hoping we'll all get to know each other soon, feel comfortable around one another.  I got out of class around nine.  Walked outside, was greeted by a big phallic symbol drawn in the snow, walked back to my dorm, ran into Chanel and went to grab a little breakfast.  Came back, watched the inauguration, went to lunch, studied a little for my History final that I have tomorrow, and read a little of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell.  But now it is nearing that magical witching hour...5.  I have to run to class, I will continue this blog when I get back.  Trust me I have much more deeper things to write about when I return.  

  

Oh La, We've got a lot to learn from each other we have got to stick together

It's funny, we make all these elaborate plans for our lives, and spend thousands of dollars attending colleges that promise to make our dreams reality.  We sacrifice for our career, and later sacrifice for love, all in the name of our future.  As we struggle to control our destiny, and grasp more and more at these picture perfect plans, and mold our present so that it will form into our future, we wind up reaching the future wanting entirely different things. It is this never ending "future self" that we work so hard towards, but what we forget to take into account is that on the journey to our "future self," who we are is picking up new pieces to our identity.  You cannot plan who future "you" is going to be, when every moment leading to that future destination is a new moment of discovery, and you are not the same person you were a moment ago.

It's eye opening, while searching for and applying to colleges I thought I needed that top 10 Princeton review, the college that promised success.  If I was going to be big, I had to go to a big place.  Ordinary was never in the cards for me, I had to shoot for excellence.  Now being at college I found that excellent is nice, but not when I am paying for the nametag.  In ten years it won't matter what the name of the college was, but what I did there, and how I grew.  You see, I confused these things.  The name of the college, or where it is, does not make or break your future.  It is YOU who opens up the opportunities that you desire for yourself.  You create your life.  

It's ironic, many of the people I know who are about to graduate, or have long since graduated, had that elaborate plan, but where they thought they were going to be five or ten years ago is not where they are now.  You can start out wanting to be the big animator in Hollywood, but find just as you are about to graduate, that the four years you spent devoting your life to this field is not what you want at all, you'd rather just plan parties and bake.  Or you could stay local, but yearn for the big city, later settle for being a teacher when your New York City dreams fall short, then find love, contemplate sacrificing your happiness and career for your husband, find out your husband is a cheating, sex-addicted bag of scum, and wind up where you always belonged, doing what you've always loved.  Funny isn't it?  How regardless of our plans, life will go how it is supposed to.

It seems sometimes all of these plans just clog up the works.  The more we plan, the more we find ourselves deviating from the plan.  What is the sense in stressing out about the future and the plans that we have when everyday is leading us in a new direction.  OUR plan just gets in the way of THE plan.  Why plan when you will end up where you are supposed to be regardless of our best human attempts to thwart it.

I love the college I am attending.  It suits me.  But even though I am happy, I am not complete.  I had plans.  To get out of this town, to go spread my wings, take the world by storm, be a successful fashion magazine editor, run with the fashionable, and discover the world.  I found love.  In the middle of my plan, a guy stepped into my life at the most inopportune moment-- or was it?  I went away to college.  I left my town, went to that prestigious college, with the pricey nametag, and took those first steps towards achieving my plan.  But is this the ultimate route?  Just because it's the only one I've seen for years does not mean it is.  I'm taking my blinders off.  We all have blinders on when we reach for the "dream" future.  The blinders that cause us to sacrifice happiness for "success," that delay our real destiny.  These blinders are starting to fall off, and I can see all of the possible pathways I can take that will all lead me to my future.

I see now that it might be more beneficial for me to deviate from my stubbornly laid plan.  maybe my next plan will be to stop planning, and just follow.

Why pay thousands of dollars for an education in a field that you will most likely, not wind up pursuing?  Why sacrifice love, family, happiness for the name and prestige, when everything you ever need to succeed is inside of you.

I have learned so much this year, and I know that I would not have found any of this out if I did not go away to Marist.

Everything in my life I realize now is perfect.  Every single thing I have done, all of the choices I made lead me to exactly where I am.  Everyone I've met has taught me everything I know now.  Every  situation I've been in has contributed to the person I am becoming.  Where I was, in my small town, forced me to leap outside of the walls and find that I can make it on my own.  Where I am has taught me that I am independent, but has also made me realize that what I wanted to get away from is exactly what I need.  Plans for careers, plans for love, plans for the future, they all change, but family, and the friends who are like family are a definite.

None of these things I would have learned without the people around me.  Everyone in my life, from my family, to my friends in Delaware, to my friends at Marist, is so vital to who I am as a person, who I am becoming, and who I am meant to be.

It's the people that will matter years from now, not the place.

I am not saying I am giving up on my dream to get out of this town, to go spread my wings, take the world by storm, be a successful fashion magazine editor, run with the fashionable, and discover the world, I am just saying maybe there is an easier way, a way I'd be happier.  I'm starting to see a new path that does not cost thousands of dollars, that does not cost my happiness, and that most importantly in the end does not cost my dreams.

As my good friend keeps reminding me, "It doesn't matter where you go.  You will make the opportunities for yourself regardless of where you are."

Oh it's a funny thing.  We've got a lot to learn from each other.  I'm absorbing all that the people around me have to teach me, and I'm ready to keep learning.

New?

The New Year.  Funny term -- New.  If you think about it, nothing is really new in the New Year.  All of the old, good and bad, just trickles into the next morning, after the ball drops.  Nope, after 2008 turned into 2009 I did not magically revert back into a new born, I was still me, an eighteen year old with a lot of dreams, and few answers; the country still remained its old, used, bankrupt model.  Yep, everything around me was just as it was, the earth was still the earth, my house was still my house, my family was still my family, my life was still my life, with the same memories, the same bruises, the same battle scars, and the same successes.  

When the clock struck twelve, everything in my life did not suddenly upgrade to a new, shiny, perfect, spotless model, everything was just as it was, the same life that I had created for myself, year after year, countdown after countdown, "new" year after "new" year.  2008 piled on top of 2007, and so on and so on.  New is not exactly what I would call the year, as it evokes a more physical image in my mind.  "New" is meant to be a mental reassurance for us humans, but physically, the term "new" is a far fetched fairy tale.  So this year I grounded myself, let go of the fairy tales, and dealt with reality-- New Years Eve is never the magical revelation, or epiphanic moment we idealize, and the New Year is just a new date,  and regardless of the year, your life is still your life.

But today, New Years Day, began and ended with great strides towards resolution and great hope for the rest of the coming "New" Years.  I am taking this year of opportunity to put forth the change I want to see in my life, and to create myself, not into a new person, but into an older, wiser, more self-assured, more driven, and more comfortable me. (Who wants to be new? I'd have to make the same mistakes all over again, and re-learn all of the lessons I already know.) 

You see my problem with "New" is that it suggests that the slate is wiped clean.  It is a new year, but it is not a new world.  Personally, and nationally, we are still the same, with the same opportunities for growth, for resolution, for change...and the earth is lucky enough to be given another year in which to do so.