Blog #6

YAY. COLLEGE. Finally, a subject I can freely talk about and not have to take forever to figure out what I wanna talk about.

But yeah. I hate college. Well, only some parts of it. Its more of a love-hate relationship. I love how much freedom we have in the types of classes we want to take and when to take them. But I also hate how all that freedom comes with the responsibilities of buying your own scantrons, submitting your assignments on time, and remembering that don’t really care if you show up to class or not. You would think not having to go to class sounds like a good thing at first but after a while life catches up to you and you realize that you are actual trash. I was also the type of person to never study in high school and still do decently well. Coming to college though, was completely different. I remember the first semester of college at SDSU was pretty overwhelming. I didn’t really know how to study other than to scan over my notes for 30 minutes. When I started taking college level chemistry and classes with over five-hundred people in them I didn’t do so well. It was hard to pay attention (or stay awake), let alone raise my hand to ask a question, which I never actually did because I was scared to sound stupid in front of everybody. I also had to commute every day so it was really annoying have to drive 25 minutes to and from school.  Commuting also made it really hard to want to get involved because after class ended I just wanted to go home. Luckily, I had a lot of friends that I knew commuted and lived nearby me so it didn’t affect my social life too much.

           

After my first year of college I got into the groove of things more. I was able to study and balance out my school life. I got really busy though because I started working. Once I started working I ended up being so burnt out. I tried so hard to balance out my social, family, school, and work life. In the end I realized that at least one of those areas would be cut out. Sadly, that was my family life. I’d always come home late, and the only thing I ever did was sleep there before I had to leave again. I remember my sister would always say “You don’t love us anymore”. My sister is 30 (and obviously needy but that’s none of my business) and I’m pretty sure she was joking at the time but she still made me feel really bad. I rarely talked to them and I would probably only have dinner with them every once in a while. This reminded me of when Professor Flemwelling mentioned Ann John and how she argues that when students become "active participants" in a discourse community, they often must make sacrifices that "can create personal and social distance between them and their families and communities". I couldn’t relate more because I became so focused on school and work and trying to keep up with my friends, that in the process of doing so I forgot about my family.  

You know what I also hate? BEING BROKE AS HELL. I don’t even remember ever spending as much money as I do now. Granted, in high school everything was pretty much given to us. Textbooks and all. We didn’t have to buy $100 access codes and stuff like that. But in college we have to pay for everything. Even scantrons. I hate it. On top of that, everything is also SO expensive. FAFSA acts like all the income my parents have goes directly to me. Nah man, I live at home and I still don’t get an allowance. The only time I ever get money from my mom is if she gives it to me, and even then I’m like  “No, mom, you don’t have to”. But that doesn’t mean I don’t take it. You best believe I’m gonna take that money. My tuition is paid through Cal Vet so I can’t even imagine what its like for other people who have to pay out of pocket. I’m praying for y’all.

But anyways, Ann John reminded me of how easy it is for a person to forget about certain aspects of their life in order to just fit in and keep up with the discourse community they are apart of.