Little Realities

During a conversation with my dad today, he said he just didn't get why I didn't like my school. He said he knows it's a small town, but he just doesn't see why I hate it so much so I'm compiling a list.

1) It's too hard. Yes, I want a good education, but I want an education that I am capable of succeeding in and Truman State isn't it. For many, it's perfect, but for some of us, it isn't. I'm not degrading my own intelligence, but I know I'm not the 28 ACT score, 4.5 GPA without studying, type person. I'm a 25 ACT score, 3.6 GPA with more than an hour of studying at night. And that was just high school. Getting a 3.6 in high school was just the right amount of challenge. Getting the 3.0 was easy, but going the extra bit to get more A's on my report card was something I enjoyed. Here? I don't. Yes, I'm getting much better grades this semester than I did first semester, but it's still a struggle and I honestly no longer enjoy school because of it. I think another school would suit me better.

2) I still haven't made any friends. Yes, there are people I enjoy being around - some more than others, but I wouldn't miss any of them for very long. Part of this is my fault, I know, but part of it isn't. This is a small school and while personalities are diverse, I haven't found the ones that fit well with mine. Everyone I've met is either a party-er or a magic-the-gathering-nerf-wars-quirky-stereotypical-nerd. This is broad and doesn't include everyone, but it's been a majority of the people I've met. What I'm really trying to say with this is - I just haven't clicked with anyone. A lot of the people I enjoy spending time around, I feel separated from because I don't go out to the parties with them on the weekends. Occasionally, they still ask and I'm grateful that they do, but they've stopped asking and I've stopped toying with the idea of possibly going out now. My reasoning? My boyfriend. A lot of the stories I hear the morning after parties involve a lot of contact with the opposite gender. If I were single like the rest of them, that'd be great, but I'm in a relationship and don't want to put myself in a situation where I run a higher risk of making a poor decision. There's a lot of drama with that group of girls, anyway. Love them to death, but frankly when you put that many girls together, someone is going to get trash talked or their feelings hurt or whatever behind their backs and I can't deal with that kind of thing right now. I've never been able to deal with that kind of thing.

3) It's too far from home. This goes partly with #2. I do enjoy living away from my parents and honestly, sometimes living with them for extended periods when I am home for longer periods of time, kind of drives me nuts (sorry mom & dad). I wouldn't want to go back to living with them, even if I did end up going to the university inside my own city. What I don't enjoy, is a) not being able to come home every weekend if I wanted to. Technically, I could, but the 3 hour drive stops me sometimes (as do finances). If I lived an hour or a half hour away, I probably wouldn't come home every weekend, but I could if I needed to. I wish I could go home this weekend, actually, but the three hour drive? No, I could do homework with the 6 hours I'd spend in a car this weekend. b) My boyfriend. I know a long distance relationship is possible - most of the time we've dated, I've been here. It's possible, but it's difficult and it puts added strain on my relationship that I'm frankly not wanting to continue with. So just break up, right? Right, except that no guy I've ever dated has actually treated me the way they were supposed to until him and that I genuinely want to see where this is going. c) My best friend is four hours away. Again, immature and unreasonable, but I miss her and it's easier to meet people when you already have at least someone to meet new people with. She even has me considering her school, even though the size of her school scares me.

4) It's affecting my personality. I'm depressed a lot of the time, especially on weekends when I have endless amounts of time to pass, but a rough weekend, means an even harder week. Today, I went into my Biology class, sat down and started crying - I don't even know why. So I took out my assignment, laid it down on the table, and left class before I disrupted it anymore than I already had by coming in a few minutes late. Granted, I spent all day yesterday curled up in a ball in bed crying. As Jeremy has been putting it, I'm quite bipolar. Bipolar isn't it, but I could see where the rest of the world would view it as such. I have always had the tendency to be like this. All the feelings I'm having are not new; I know them all by heart. It wasn't until... oh I'd say about March 2008 that I started becoming the person that most people now me as and the person that, frankly, I adored. I loved myself. I loved how I looked, I loved my personality; my beliefs were set in stone. Yeah, I was flawed, but I loved who I was and I was the happiest I have ever been in my life because of it. And that is what I want back. That, is exactly what this past school year has taken away from me and above everything else that I hate about being here, that is it. I want me back.

5) Stress. Because this school is so hard, I spend a ton of time stressed out, which is why I miss home so much and why I feel my personality has disappeared. When I go home, I pop back into myself after a few days. I enjoyed spring break so much, not because I did anything fascinating, but because I was able to be the person I know I am underneath all the horrible effects that stress has on me. I know I'll be stressed out at least a little bit at whatever school I go to. Trust me, I don't expect school to be a piece of cake, but this constant struggle is too much for me. The night before I had to come back to Kirksville, I couldn't sleep because I was getting anxious and stressed out...and I hadn't even gotten here yet. I couldn't enjoy my last two days of spring break because all my anxiety was coming back and I realized that I've associated my college town with stress and anxiety. It's exhausting. And I'm not happy.

My mood change has been a lot of why I'm not happy here. I'm not happy here because I'm flat out depressed. Depressed to the point where I really don't understand why I care so much about my grades when I don't even know what it is that I want to study. But I have to figure out what I want to study because after next semester, I don't have any more requirements to fulfill because I've completed most of them already and will finish the rest of them up by the end of next fall.

I want to be closer to home, but not at home. I don't necessarily want to go to the college my boyfriend is going to, but I would like to be closer to him. Honestly, I'd prefer to be with my best friend and only an hour and a half away from my boyfriend rather than three. I want to be at a school that academically challenges me, yes, but not one that academically kicks my butt. I get happy for a moment when I think I might be closer to taking the steps to get these things, but then I just end up fighting with my parents over it or I end up feeling like I'll never get out of here.

Lost

I don't know what to do with the rest of my college career. I don't know what I want to study and for most people about to finish their freshman year of college, this isn't a big deal. I walked in as almost a sophomore though, thanks to over achievement in high school and now?

Now it's kicking my ass. Now, it's making me regret it, but I suppose in the long run, I did save money. Oh I'll still be in school for four years or longer, but it's getting so close that I don't know how long I'll be here.

After the fall semester of my sophomore year, I won't know what to take. I suppose I'll keep taking science classes until somehow I end up with a bachelor's degree in biology, but what to do with that? I don't want to be a biology major.

I walked in to Truman State wanting to be a nursing major. As time has passed and I still haven't gotten a rejection or an acceptance letter, I'm beginning to question it. I'm beginning to question it for several reasons.

I'm worried they don't want me. This makes me wonder if I ever really wanted it myself or if I was just doing it because I had nothing else to study and it was something that I could get a decent job with anywhere in the world and be able to sustain a comfortable lifestyle. I also wonder if I ever really wanted it or if my dreams were just results of whatever pizza I had eaten the night before. Yeah... that's right. I chose my major because of dreams. I kept having dreams I was a nurse.

I took it as a sign from God that that's where my calling lay and I had it planned out. I was going to my choice school for four years, I'd graduate with my BSN and then disappear to Cambodia or some place for a year and do missionary work as a nurse and as a disciple for my faith. I still want to do that, but I don't know what degree I'll end up walking out of here with.

I don't even have a freaking plan B for this. I don't know what I want to study. I'm considering English or Journalism only because my minors are German and photography, but I honest to God don't think I could spend my life writing newspaper articles. Do you know what would be hella cool? Writing and photographing for National Geographic. That would be the coolest plan B in the world to me. Or being a marine biologist, but that would limit my choice of living. Marine biologists don't make enough money for me to live in California and I hate the weather in Florida too much to actually live there.

And I feel like I'm falling to pieces here. My spirit is being crushed by what my life has turned in to since coming to college. I never again thought I would feel alone as I did a few years ago, but here I am now convinced that at 20 years old, my happiness in life has completely peaked and the rest of the world failed to see it. I did... and I'd give the world to have it back.