In this Discussion
- auntscale1 August 2007
- canoe7grape October 2007
- circlenepal20 October 2007
- DJRose October 2007
- dollarflame6 August 2007
- dust33rain August 2007
- ezorvera October 2007
- fog05tile August 2007
- hail9fat August 2007
- KristaMichelle October 2007
- mexico39taiwan August 2007
- okraparrot5 October 2007
- sackrose55 August 2007
- target35ghost August 2007
- Tempe Arizona October 2007
- thephantommilk October 2007
- tune1shade August 2007
- veinleo09 October 2007
- women60banana August 2007
Comments
Where did I twist your words? I said I have fewer burdens now than in college and you started talking about your family.
i have mixed feelings about going back to school too..
more on this later, as i'm trying to enjoy my summer now that my summer class ended.. so today i'm going shopping and to the beach! yaay.
but yeah, i know what you guys are talking about, especially Amy & Sarah with the new school supplies hehe.
the mention of new pencils made me think about that
I would love to tell you that I'm going on a spectacular birthday extravaganza involving partying like a rockstar and excessive amounts of British Cadbury chocolate (my drug of choice). But alas, I am not. I'm going to work, and hopefully there will be cake for me there. Then after work I'm going to dinner with my parents, my husband, and a few friends (most likely at the Macaroni Grill). It will most likely involve dessert though. (It had better involve dessert, LOL!) Hopefully besides that, I will have loads and loads of phone calls and emails from my friends wishing me well.
Well, also, on Wednesday we're headed out to Seattle for a few days next week, but that's more of a trip for Adam than for me. There's a video game convention he wants to go to - PAX, or Penny Arcade Expo, for those interested. So we'll be there. I just want to ride a ferry. I've got a thing about ferry boats.
i don't move in until september 21st, but i'm already thinking a lot about school and how this next year will be.
last year (my first year of college) started off rather shaky.. it wasn't that i missed my family, but more that i missed my friends. a lot of them had gone to ucla and uci, but only one of my friends came to ucsd with me.. and we would hear about all the fun our friends were having together, whereas we were sitting alone in one of our rooms doing nothing during welcome week. i didn't hit it off well with anyone really.. but then again i didn't mingle enough either.. that was partially my fault.. well mostly my fault.. and my friend was being really negative too.. and oh i was living in the on-campus apts they usually give to second years (but i was living with three other freshman), whereas she was living in freshman housing, which is set up suite-style with about 15 girls per suite.. so she would usually come over to my place and didn't really bond much with her suitemates and was just really negative about everything and wouldn't even try to make friends or just go out and explore san diego (she had a car, i didn't take mine)
okay so thats how last year started..
first quarter was basically BLAH
but second quarter i started thinking and was like wow if life continues like this.. then what kind of college experience am i going to have? this is lame.
so second quarter i started going over to kirti's (friend) suite more and hanging out there in the common room.. and i became good friends with one of the girls and things were just better.
when third quarter started, i vented a bit to my RAs (they were super cool and would talk to me a lot since i was one of the few freshmen in the apts they were supervising) and they told me to join PERC (stands for programming at eleanor roosevelt college at ucsd - we put on events and study breaks for the oncampus community) and so i did and it was a lot of fun and i started to become friends with the other members.. during this time, kirti's suite got a TV in the living room.. and that automatically made girls sit out in the living room more, and bond more.. and so i would go over to her place almost everynight.. and by the end of the year, a new group of friends had emerged. so this is all fine and dandy.. but the thing is.. friendships are developing with the perc kids too, especially after the night we had an end of the year kickback thing with drinks and such.
another thing is, i had three girls i was planning to get on-campus apt with, but we got majorly screwed over by housing, and so now i'm stuck with three other girls that are all friends.. and that made me angry.. because this year i lived with three random girls, and there wasn't much drama, but it was just boring.. it was cold, not cozy. the apt only got decorated when my bday came around and kirti and i went nuts with xmas lights and pink streamers. and so i was looking forward to next year being so much fun - living with my friends, having a nice place, etc.. but that died too.
and that brings me to the present.
i'm really anxious about this year... i feel like i'm going to be caught between two different groups that i want to be a part of.. and i'll have to learn to balance them out.. also, the perc kids are party-ers, and i'm not so much.. i mean i want to have fun - it is college afterall, and i want the experience & memories, but i don't want to compromise my morals. and that leads to another thing.. i drank at that perc party for the first time ever.. which was shocking to both my friends who have known me forever and to me. i don't know what compelled me to do it - it wasn't peer pressure, it was my own choice.. and initially i felt guilty about it.. but now.. i kind of want to drink again.. mostly out of curiosity to see how much i can take because i didn't feel anything when i did. with the perc kids, they tried to pressure me a lot "one more shot.. take a shot with me.. pleease" etc.. and luckily i have strong willpower so i said no and told him he was like the kids they told me to "just say no" to in the Dare program haha. anyway.. the other group of friends are mostly girls and they are more like me.. studious yet still fun. some don't drink, some do.. etc. i think i like hanging out with them more, but i enjoy the company of the perc kids as well.. and i don't want to leave the organizations because i'd been wanting to get involved in school orgs and this one is great.
now i'm left wondering.. i know i'm not supposed to drink, but i kind of want to..
i want to stay focused and ambitious, but i still want to have fun and get the proper college experience.
i want to meet new people and make those lasting college friendships everyone speaks of, but not with the wrong people..
and so, i'm anxious - both meanings.. nervous about what is to come, and excited at the prospect of having my second year be much better that first year.
[if you're still reading, thanks much i appreciate it.. i know its long, but i needed to set everything up for it to make sense]
Just remember, you can have a ton of fun without drinking!
And if you do drink, be careful. Don't change yourself just to fit in or anything, only drink because you want to. And even then, be careful. Don't go too crazy with it. But I'm sure you know that.
I hope you have fun!! Good luck!!
and of course you may call me ambie!
I probably wasn't much help. Sorry!
You poor dear. You know, you don't have to drink to have a good time. I really wasn't much of a drinker until after I graduated, mainly because there aren't a lot of alcoholic drinks I like. I loved college, every second of it, no matter how sober! LOL!
What kinds of things do you like to do? I was big into theatre and music, and so I got involved with those kinds of groups. There are loads of student groups on campus. Get a facebook and meet people in your classes. You are gonna have to put yourself out there a bit, I'm sorry to say. But it's worth it! Maybe you can find other OK Go fans on campus and bond over that?
::Hugs:: If you need a "grownup" to talk to I'm here!
Rachel
and yeah i know i don't need to drink to have fun.. but that concept seems foreign to the vast majority of college students.. like i don't understand why people are so obsessed with getting completely wasted four nights a week and doing things they regret in the process. i'm fine with not drinking, but at the same time i'm curious about it.. because i've never been exposed to it much before..
i think my main dilemma is figuring out what type of things i want to be involved in and finding real friends. if the perc kids can't respect my morals and such, then they obviously aren't my friends.. but at the same time i like the organization itself, and especially if i want to be an RA third year, then i have to stay involved in these kinds of orgs.. right now, other than perc, i'm in the undergrad economics society just because it can be helpful for picking classes and planning for business school and such.. other than that i dont know what to be a part of - where is my place? i don't want to join any of the indian orgs.. because brown people are just way too much drama.. and i don't have much brown pride..
my passions are in music & business.. i don't know of any music-related things, and i'm already in undergrad econ society..
i want to find things i like and that'll be good for me in the long run too.. i'm one of those people that think waay too much.. and so i'm already thinking like how am i gonna find a job after i graduate, because thats only two years away (i'm planning on finishing undergrad in three years)!
ahhhhhhhh i dunnooo i just wanna keep my GPA as high as it is right now.. and have fun with cool people, and do things that are beneficial! (oh and maybe find a boy while i'm at it ha!)
oh and rachel i might take you up on being able to talk to you and send you sporadic PM's during the school year.. and you'll have to remind me about all this.
awww ambie
i just found out that i have 13 more years of school *vomit*
i'll be 30 and still in school. how sad.
I didn't drink in college until I turned 21, so it was only my last 2 years (I took 5 to do my undergrad, but oh well, it was a hard degree, and I finished: that's what counts). I'd tried it when I was MUCH too young and had a very bad experience so I swore it off. Unfortunately ALL my friends drank, but most of them respected my decision not to. One thing to remember when someone is pressuring you like that is how drunk are they? If it's much at all they're not thinking logically "this is a choice she made and I should respect it". They're thinking "SHOOOOOOT! Who's taking a shot with me? You! you're taking a shot..." They're having fun and they want the whole world to have fun too and they think this is the way to do it. Does that make sense? I got a drunken "C'mon Jenny just take one shot" from a lot of people that I knew respected my decision when they were sober, they were just trying to include me in the party. Now if they're doing it before they get really wasted, well that's just disrespectful.
One thing I did at those parties that was a lot of fun for me and them was I would bartend at games of quarters. They'd have a pitcher of whatever they were drinking mixed up and I'd refill the shot glasses and set them on the table and I had my towel that I'd clean up spills with. It was really cool, I was involved in the game, i was right there with everybody following what was going on, but I wasn't drinking. And the drunks loved it!! They'd get wasted and go on and on about how awesome I was just for pouring drinks. Man, that was a lotta fun! I should do that again. Once I turned 21 and joined the game, it just wasn't the same.
Moderation is rule number 1 with alcohol. It's fine to get a little silly and have a good time, but it's when you have too much you start doing things you regret. But it sounds like you're fully aware of that.
Already thinking about how to get a job! Wow! You need to buddy up with my sister, I hope she's half as smart about college as you are (I wasn't). Sounds like your priorities are IN LINE! That's truly wonderful, there's no way you can fail if you keep that attitude. That's a mistake i made, I didn't think about jobs until about 3 months before I graduated. It was like oh, wow, college is not going to last forever is it? So there I was 23 years old with a degree in electrical engineering, watching kids after school for 7 bucks an hour. Not that that was the end of the world I suppose.
If your school is like mine, there's a campus org. for EVERYTHING. I mean we had an anime club, a gamer's association, a star trek fan club, (I hung with geeks, can you tell?) a frat for every profession, and organization promoting every cause: a gay straight alliance, a... crap... one promoting sexual assault awareness, college republicans, young democrats. There was something for everybody. Keep looking I'm sure you'll find your niche.
Wow that's long. I hope it doesn't come off as preachy, and I hope it helps even a little. I'd offer to listen to sporadic PMs too, but I'm afraid you may have already surpassed me on the maturity scale, so I'm not sure how much help I could be.
awww ambie
i just found out that i have 13 more years of school *vomit*
i'll be 30 and still in school. how sad.
Are you going to be a doctor?? that's not sad at all!! If you can stick that out that's going to be an amazingly fulfilling career.
It's not everyone that can hack that. I know I couldn't. Rock on!!!
It's not everyone that can hack that. I know I couldn't. Rock on!!!
yeah...opthalmologist....
i think i can do the 12 years that it takes. i like school and learning [i know, im a total nerd].
I just want to point out that doing well at college, and drinking occasionally, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As long as it's not every night, and you get the right balance, it's possible to keep your grades up and still have a great night out once in a while. So I wouldn't worry about it from that perspective - just don't go overboard, and don't do it just to fit in. But you know that already, of course!
i think i can do the 12 years that it takes. i like school and learning [i know, im a total nerd].
Haha Vinnie, I'm gonna be studying for ages too! But you don't spend the whole time at college, do you? It's 6 years at college for me, three of which are mainly based in a hospital, and then another 7 years or so specializing - but that's all in a hospital as well.
Oh god. So much schoooooool!
Oh god. So much schoooooool!
yay! im not the only one.
well, according to wikipedia, 8 years at a university and then 4 more years specializing [which includes a couple of years at an internship at any hospital]. yeah, but i think, I THINK, i can perform lasik eye surgery after that [ching ching!].
Actually, I have a birthmark on the back of my eye that impairs my vision in my left eye. Wana sort it for me?
I officially become a doctor after my 6 years at college. That's when I take the title Dr. and start earning money. Mwaha!