An AC-CUMULonimbus-ATION of Thought

I just turned down an opportunity to go to a Cubs game when I had already paid for the ticket because I have to catch up in my book for HUM class. This isn't the first time I've passed by an opportunity to experience Chicago and be social with people in order to do class work, though it is increasingly becoming my most common choice in ultimata with those divergent options: do schoolwork, or do something exciting and different. The thing is, rather than lament this decision, I'm rejoicing in it. Being able to take the time to really engage in my structured education in class, I believe, will give me more joy than the single adventures into the city which, because of their episodic nature, seem most prominent in my memory as times when I was happy. I almost feel it's gotten to the point where partaking in certain social activities for pleasure is less enjoyable than doing the work that would actually also be enjoyable, (though, by nature, "work") and which would get the pressure of stress off the back of my neck.

Let me try to rationalize this mildly disconcerting realization of my shifting preference for how to spend my time. It's just so sad, so much of a personal letdown, when I have to sit through a class and almost feel opportunities at engaging discussion and provocation of new thoughts fly out the window because I don't have the framework on which to build them. I guilitily feel the professor's questions going to waste on me, like trying to rinse out a mud-caked garment in a trickle of water through the wall (where the mud-caked garment is the text or information at hand, waiting to be cleansed through dissection of the argument and discussion of its relevance, connection to other concepts, etc., and the professor's guidance is the stream of water, gushing profusely from some source of origin, but my lack of preparation has constructed a wall, a barrier that prohibits the shirt from being cleansed)...or it's as if she's about to take a load of what seem like useful things to the garbage and I'd like to cry out and say, "Wait! We can use that!" But if I were to keep the junk, it would just clutter up my room and when would I actually ever use this pile of wood, this old bicycle tire...when will I find a facility to recycle #5 plastic? (When will I have time to go back and catch up on the reading?) At some point I just have to sigh and let her take these things to the garbage...let her dispose of those valuable attempts to stimulate discussion.

So I've been having this rollercoaster of emotions, alternating rapidly between the sentiment that I am miserable here, that I don't belong, that I don't like this college or maybe don't want to be in college at all right now, that the reason I seem not to have capitalized on all the opportunites to get involved in things is because of the infection of the defective social organism of this school into my system, turning me into a maladjusted social being who prefers seclusion to social contact because my attempts at social outreach are met with confused, bewildered stares from bespectacled eyes, or by the scoff of someone who projects the air of thinking that contact with lifeforms on a lower plane of existence than him will decrease his value as a factory of mental output...(these latter cases, I assure you, are grossly inflated exaggerations of the student body here...but nevertheless true accounts of my fleeting first impressions of certain people.) Then on the other hand there are times when I feel completely and utterly satisfied with what I am learning, when I feel enlivened at the prospect of learning more, when I am extremely grateful for the diverse community of people here and the opportunites I have to share a meal with them, to exchange ideas, ideologies, or maybe just smiles in passing...and I complacently accept that I must sacrifice other activities in order to do the schoolwork that I myself have chosen, even though it's easy to blame it on the demanding professor or the College...or whatever unnamed oppressive force creates the "have" in "Oh my gosh I have to do so much by tomorrow."

So I've come to realize that these swings are caused by the constant question of how to balance education/enrichment through experience against book-learning. Put another way, it's about whether "college" and all that is embedded in that word is more about the experiences, the connections to people, the excitement, the youthful spontaneity, and what-have-you, or the access to knowledge, the ability to gain more, and the structure that allows you to be in the psychological mindset of accomplishing the attainment of said knowledge (that is, I could do a lot of reading over the summer and enrich my mind, but without the accountability of a class, professor, and a grade, who's going to make me? My motivation will eventually dwindle and I will be distractedc by numerous other leisurely pursuits.)

I think the most recent moments when I was really happy were when I could plan ahead and put aside the time to really delve into my classwork, to take advantage of the traditional, academic side of learning: Oh, the interesting reading I can do, the dynamic class discussions in which I can partake (which will become all the more dynamic through my participation--from the standpoint of me being invested, that is, not because no one talks if I don't...mostly... ;-), the chance to explore and articulate my own ideas in an essay. Unfortunately, (and here's the kicker,) in order to have time enough to do justice to this type of learning, I pretty much have to sacrifice the other, social, learning.

My fear, then, is that I'm cutting myself off from people. But more and more I think I only feel this fear because of imagined social pressure...that is, if I didn't have the stereotypical image of college in my head as a time when you build lifelong friendships, go out and have wild and crazy adventures, etc. I think I would be able to hold on to this intense happiness and joy that I can derive from learning in the school structure...Aha! And this, I must remind myself, is part of the reason I chose this school: if I am in an environment where people choose to spend their time in scholastic study for the joy of it, and thus I, in joining them, am not plagued by the thought that "everyone else is off having fun without me," I really will be able to pour myself into it.

And this brings me to my next point: the extent to which I realize I must pour myself, my efforts, into study in order to feel on top of things, here. It's not a question of being "smart." (I'll get to that in a moment.) It's a question of knowing things. I realize now how very little I know. Sometimes I don't finish the reading for a class (not out of rebellion, mind you, but a lack of focus to get it done, perhaps a few guilty ventures into something that is not school related--HEAVEN FORBID!--but certainly not anything major that would warrant me not finishing the work (like drinking and partying, as I can imagine is the reason for similar neglect of classwork in my peers)...But when I don't do the reading, I can't just make it up, pretend I knew it all along (well, pretending only gets you so far...), whereas I feel like~ocasionally, maybe~that is my default mode when dealing with something intellectually stimulating...a sort of "Oh, that's an interesting addition to or take on a subject I already knew...rather than the now more frequent moments of "this is entirely new ground for me..." And I don't know why that is my default mode...I know that I learned a lot in high school...Maybe it's just that in high school (at least the parts I can remember) I was in the mindset of "I don't know this, and would like to, and to an extent, need to, so teach me." Whereas now, when there is a much greater degree of freedom (no one said I had to go to college), the pervasive atmosphere is a sort of haughty, "yes, yes, I know...tell me something new, something interesting." I have developed that mindset but the reasoning behind it doesn't hold. I just don't know as much as lots of, if not most of, these people. Now, this isn't automatically a bad thing. It's nice to have the challenge, someone to lower the limbo stick and stare you in the face and say "How low can you go?"rather than playing limbo with a bunch of people who are five feet taller than me, being able to run back and forth under a bar they struggle to get their knees under. Limbo is more fun when it's tricky, it's true, but falling isn't always fun, nor is falling behind in classes.

So anyway, in the midst of these thoughts today I sit under a tree in the grass and a man with a young boy I'd guess to be about 8 come by. The man says, "Oh look, another co-ed. Are you a student here?"
"Yeah."
He turns to the little boy, "See, another smart...person. I was going to say 'girl' but that's illegal."
Teehee. I smirk, maybe even laugh out loud.
"Hey, what was your ACT score?" the man asks.
I laugh at the abrupt directness of the question. Why not answer it, though? How often do you get an invitation to acknowledge out-loud your accomplishments and take pride in them? "34," I say with a smile.
"Wow," he turns to the little boy, "See, we took a poll. That other person said 31...out of 36."
"Alright, that makes me feel good!" I giggle back.
He turns his attention back to me, "You have to be something like the top 1% to get in here, don't you?"
I sense that this might be one of those aggressively motivating parents, trying to instill in his boy early the necessity of getting into a good school and how hard it is to do so. Feeling the danger in this kind of stress from an early age, I direct my answer more to the boy, "Well, it's not all about test scores...You have to be an overall well-rounded applicant..." Curious as to their presence on campus, I ask, "Are you taking a tour?"
"Oh, I graduated from podiatry school here..." he gestures to Rockefeller Chapel behind us. "...and right now his grandpa's having surgery, so we went for a walk to get some air, and we thought, 'Hey, it's a church. Let's pray.'"
An empathetic "Mmm."
He launches into a series of more questions about the results of my academic career:
"What was your GPA?"
"Umm...actually, about 4.9."
"Out of...?
"5.2"
"And what rank was that?"
"8"
"Out of...?"
"About 300."
"Phew...what'd the valedictorian have?"
"Probably a 5.something."
Looking again at the little boy before his next question (I can imagine how strange all this talk of numbers might be to him), the man says, "now let me ask you this. What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I don't know yet," I say with a chuckle and a casual toss of my hands into the air.
"That's the right answer," he says, pointing emphatically. "You know, it worries me when you ask kids these days and they think they know exactly...I remember being in grad school and thinking, 'well, what now?' Podiatry school, I guess."
"Yeah..."
"OK, well thanks for talking with us."
"Oh, sure. Enjoy your walk!"
"Yeah, we'll try not to get lost."

Huh. Thanks, dude. It's nice to be reminded of the credentials on paper that say I'm worthy of being here...If my sense of academic stimualtion weren't enough to keep me going, that's something else to keep in mind: the standard system for finding smart people says I have potential. So I'm supposed to do something with it.

There's a vast store of knowledge out there, and the prospect of being able to dive into it is at once exhilarating and terrifying, like looking off a high-dive into the deep pool below. Once you jump, you can't pause mid-spin and chill by the side of the pool with friends. You have to see it through and hope they'll be cheering and waving from the stands when you emerge, saturated, accomplished.