I Wasn't Told This Before College #7: An Inconvenient Truth: College Edition

   When I came into college, I thought it would be an amazing place of freedom, learning, and happiness. But I've come to learn a few things since the day I moved in:

1. Sharing bathrooms for the sake of not having to clean them is not worth it.
2.  Avoid the ice cream place when the temperature exceeds 70 degrees F.
3. Chemistry is unspeakable.
4. Grief doesn't mix well with the college transition.
5. Schools leading up to college do nothing to adequately prepare you for college.

   The first two points are pretty self-explanatory. I chose to live on a specific part of campus so I did not need to clean the bathrooms. I'll spare you a detailed description and just leave you with the fact that two weeks in, I was willing to clean the bathroom. As for avoiding the ice cream shop, you see, Ohio had it's own April Fool's Day trick called "Heat Columbus to Nearly 80 degrees." I walked into the cafe that sells ice cream three different times during the day and  each time the line stretched almost all the way out the door.

   I do not wish to explain number three because Chemistry is unspeakable. I guess I do have to mention it later to explain number 5, but the less I have to think about it, the better. Oh look. Someone threw that textbook across the room. Huh. Wait.

  Numbers 4 and 5 are the most important points though.

  Number 4: Grief doesn't mix well with the college transition. Everyone tells you before college that it is a big transition. But no one tells you how massive the transition is. And grief is hard enough. No need to mix them.

   Unfortunately, that's what happened to me. 

   My grandpa, affectionately called Poppy, passed away in March 2013. His wife, my grandma affectionately called Dahgo, passed away seven months later, in October 2013. They were incredibly important to my entire family. They babysat my sister and I while my mom worked. They were present at every birthday party or family gathering for the entire 18 years I knew them. I miss them more than I can say. 

   But there comes a problem with grief and living on your own. Now I don't live that far from my family, but I still am removed from them. They are surrounded by Dahgo and Poppy's belongings and pictures. As my mom puts it, 2013 was a tsunami, and I managed to escape to a little refugee camp called Ohio State. But this semester, the water has started to trickle in, with flash floods occurring more and more frequently.  

   But before I delve more on that, let's talk about number 5.

   Number 5: Schools before college do nothing to adequately prepare you for college. You're probably thinking "whoa, whoa, whoa. That's a bold statement, especially coming from someone who has only been in college for a year." Yeah, well, it doesn't take more than a month to figure it out.

   The entirety of high school is devoted to getting into college. High schoolers join clubs, volunteer, work part-time jobs, take AP classes, etc. All to get into college. But once you're in college, no one cares about that. The professors don't treat you differently because you got a 32 on your ACT. 

   What you do realize is that you suddenly are tossed into a lake and you don't know how to swim. People stand around telling you to grab the life preserver, but every time you get close enough to reach it, it gets dragged away from you. 

   I've been over my not knowing how to study. I was kind of prepared to have to tackle that. But no one ever told me that I wouldn't know how to fail.

   I am currently clueless as to whether or not I'll pass chemistry. Grades and curves and points. Nothing makes sense. No one knows anything. I work incredibly hard and I don't get anything from it. 

   I got a research position in a lab. Me. A freshman. I beat out all these sophomores and juniors who are far better candidates then me. And I feel blessed to have it. But I can't get through one project in the lab without feeling like a screw up. It's nothing that the grad student I work with said or the PI or anyone. It's the fact that for the entirety of my life so far mistakes were punished. You lose points. You get cut from things. And now making mistakes frightens me. 
   That's how school doesn't prepare you for college. They want you to get to college, so they punish you if something goes wrong, but they don't instruct you on how to fix it. They praise people who get good grades and test scores, and those who don't are left behind. I got pretty good grades in high school. I did really well on tests. But I am suffering in college because no one told me how to make mistakes. 
  And when you combine numbers 4 and 5, it's like you are reaching for the life preserver and suddenly a boat speeds by and the waves not only drag the life preserver further from your grasp, but they're so powerful that they drag you under water for a time too.
   That's how I felt a few weeks ago. The week after I got back from spring break, I was overwhelmed by the amount of work that didn't get done over break. And trust me, it wasn't laziness. It was "I just worked in a lab for 8 hours, I honestly have no desire to think any more today." But when I got back and realized I had so much to do, I panicked. But I got it done. And then I panicked about something else. But I got it done. 
   And then that Thursday, my professor discussed the previous exam, which I flat out failed. That set me crying. And then I went to the lab. I was okay, but shaky. And then I messed a few things up. Small things not worth the stress. But then I started crying again. And this time I couldn't stop. 
   Later when I was able to have dinner with my mom, we discussed everything I said above. We discussed the idea of the tsunami. She pointed out that the week before had been one year since Poppy passed away. The women of my family have the ability to be calm and helpful in chaos, and then react later. My reaction was just a bit later than the rest of the family. 
   And this is why numbers 4 and 5 should never be combined. Leaving your family  to live on your own( no matter how close you live to them), learning to control your own finances, struggle to do well in class, and still find joy in life is what the college transition really is. That's what being an adult is. That's the life preserver.

   This time, I don't have to explain my continued struggle. I just did. I am fighting an uphill battle. I have suffered a meltdown. I get frustrated daily, nearly to the point of tears because everything I have known to this point is different.
   My very wise mother told me that college is a new part of my life. Until now, everything has pretty much been determined for me, but now I am in control. Don't get me wrong, I like being in control of my own life, but it doesn't exactly come with an instruction manual. Perhaps that's why I keep writing these; so someone else doesn't make the same mistakes I did. Or maybe, just so someone else knows they aren't alone in feeling the same way. Because that's part of it. You start to think it's just you, and that everyone else can catch the life preserver. And I feel that way a lot. Everyone else seems to be okay in chemistry, or can pull their feelings together, and I am going mad because I can't.
   But that's the inconvenient truth about college. No one can catch the life preserver. They can only convince you they're already saved. 

MORAL OF THE STORY: The transition to college is 1000x harder than anyone will lead you to believe, and only a very small part is because of shared bathrooms.

I Wasn't Told This Before College #6: Getting Cut From The Band Was Not The End of the World

"Everything happens for a reason."

   That sentence is a very good sentiment, and one that I have known and lived by long before I ever started college. But hearing that twenty times when you were just cut from the OSU marching band that you had worked incredibly hard all summer for and had ultimately chosen a band instrument in the fifth grade for hopes of being in, you really don't want to hear that. Yet everyone says it.
   I've said before that my first semester was really hard. But as hard as the whole semester was, nothing matched the first week.
  Sure, there were distractions from my sadness. Meeting the RA, getting to know my roommate, an activities fair where thousands of people walked around the Oval and not once stepped into the grass. But it didn't change the fact that I had been cut from the band less than a week before I moved into my dorm. And it also didn't change the fact that I was faced with the band in a (basically) mandatory convocation. I broke down. I couldn't help it. 
   And it continued to hurt. Despite warnings, I did make friends, some of whom were in the band. Football games made me cry. I couldn't look at my TBDBITL t-shirt for months. I sobbed when the band was featured on The Today Show. It slowly got better, but for a long time, anything related to band was either accompanied by tears or pangs in my heart.
   Oh, and that reminds me, nothing I am saying is anything bad about the band. Some people choose to cuss about it, or say mean or hurtful things, but I can't. I love the band, and will continue to work to get in it. The reason it ends up being so good is because of the competitiveness of those who tryout. But that being said, getting cut from the band is one of the most painful experiences of my life. It is topped only by the deaths of my grandparents, and I swear I'm not being dramatic. Every reaction I had was real. I cried for months about it. It was my dream since I learned about the band in fifth grade from my older siblings.    People who don't know TBDBDITL or are band people in general might think "wow. It's just a band. Get over it. " Um, excuse me. How dare you think that about TBDBITL. They ARE The Best Damn Band In The Land. Need proof? take my favorite TBDBITL show, the 2012 video game show, as proof.

   See? They live up to their name. And you can see why I want to be in it so darn badly. 

   The first week, music wise, didn't get any better. I signed up to audition for a concert band and ended up missing the audition by a whole day. And so I ended up in the non-major concert band, which ended up being fine, but at the time, it just seemed to make matters that much worse.

   But God really does work in the strangest ways sometimes.

  If I hadn't missed that audition by a day, I wouldn't have run into the jazz trombone professor. We knew each other from my attendance at a university jazz camp and my being a member of the Columbus Youth Jazz Orchestra and his being a member of the Columbus Jazz Orchestra.

   And if it weren't for meeting him there, I wouldn't have ended up taking lessons with him. And if I hadn't signed up for lessons, he wouldn't have thought of me when the second university jazz ensemble needed another trombonist. 

   I ended up as that other trombonist.

   It wasn't until I attended a jazz rehearsal, and got lost in the music that I realized how everything that seemed bad worked out well in the end. No, it wasn't making TBDBITL, but I love to play jazz music, and I ended up in a really great ensemble (without an audition, I might add.)

 

   I've noticed a theme in these posts. I always end with some paragraph explaining how I still feel a struggle with whatever problem I am discussing and how I will continue to work on it. 

   But you know what? It's true. Bad things happen all the time, but something good will always come of it.

• I had given up on getting  a date in high school until I was in college because I was tall, geeky, and outspoken, and high school boys seemed intimidated. When I accepted it and was sad about it, I ended up meeting the young man that I fell in love with who loves me for the reasons listed above and so much more.
• I quit softball because of politics after my sophomore year of high school. Even though it was my choice, it was really difficult because I loved the game so much and had sacrificed so much. But I was able to turn to theatre and ended up having such a better time with the people, and having twice as much fun with the activity. ( I even wrote a theatre piece about softball.)
•  My parents were divorced when I was six years old, and, no, it hasn't been a walk in the park, but some incredible things have come of it. Namely, a truly amazing blended family I have been part of for over eight years now that I love so much, it's not even funny. 

MORAL OF THE STORY: Bad things will happen throughout our lives, but something better is coming. It could be a work of God or the universe, but everything has a silver lining, even if it's almost impossible to think of.