Making Mistakes

So everyone is stressed out right now. Last week and this week are midterm weeks here at Duke and evverrryone is stressed out. The thing that many of my friends and I here have begun to realize is that we are no longer at the top of the academic food chain. Plain and simple, we're just not smart anymore. Okay, well maybe that's not completely true. We are smart, it's why we got here. One of my friends posted in his blog last night, "When you float in a sea of extraordinary, you just become...ordinary." This is the cold, hard truth about college, but there's one thing that's important to remember: The fact that you're ordinary in a sea of extraordinary means that you're extraordinary too. That's why you're here. Otherwise you'd be extraordinary in a sea of ordinary. And that's never any fun. 

No matter which school you're at, there's probably a good reason you're there. Hopefully you belong there academically and it wasn't just because of the money. If that is the case, I hope you can make the very very best out of your situation. But what I was saying was, high school is a wicked lie. The only reason we go to high school is to gain experience; it's because we're not old enough to be in college living on our own at age 14 or 15 and we don't know enough about life to do so. I had a pretty deep conversation with my roommates Monday night about contemplating our first world problems. I do it way too much and it's probably why I don't get enough sleep, but it's totally worth it. Having those conversations with people I'm just starting to get to know is the coolest because I can really start telling, by what they say, what kind of people they are. And you may already know by my last post that I'm often an observer rather than a participant, but when these conversations begin, in relatively small groups, I get totally into it. 

So anyway, we talked some about how high school is for experience. Handling work, handling social life, handling relationships. And that is one thing I regret about high school: not experiencing enough to prepare me for college. I think it'll bite me in the butt later. Like I've said in the past, I'm an idealist when it comes to relationships and I've always imagined that my first relationship would be with that perfect guy. Reality check: fairytales are lies too. I do kind of wish I had been in a relationship in high school just so I would know what to do and have experienced the emotions attached to the whole institution. But it just so happened that no one really liked me that way.

I'm not emo, I swear.

But in a sense, I've learned to become more practical. I will work things out in my head before I get worked up about them. High levels of cortisol are always difficult to deal with, but you find a way and know there are always people to help you through. So yeah, my conversation with my roommates were centered around the spectrum between idealism and realism and between emotional thinking and practical thinking. We also talked about how all three of us, and probably almost any girl you speak to, has some level of a fear of rejection. Although personally although I haven't been broken up with or anything since I've never been in a relationship, I have been on the rough end of unrequited attraction. It's tough. But experience makes everything easier, something that I am thankful for. 

So anyway, my point is, high school was like a buffer, college is almost the real deal, and then after that is when it gets... well, real. College can be sort of a buffer too if that's what you want to make it. It's never too late to try things out and fix your mistakes which is a philosophy I strongly believe in. However, one day it will be too late to make mistakes, and that's why you want to do what you can to prevent that from happening. Good luck.

Also, my babies.

Phototropism, come at meeee.