Battling university blues

Speaking from three months’ worth of experience as an awkward, hopelessly lost freshman, I can safely claim that college is a bloody nightmare. A somewhat pleasant nightmare, at times, but a nightmare nonetheless. Every once in a while, I find myself desperately wishing to snap out of the slumber. I want to find myself somewhere more familiar, still orange-clad in unfashionable gingham and still grudgingly putting up with the little quirks and absurdities of my high school and its peculiar cast of characters.

Whether sadly or otherwise, this is not the case. I’m a college student now, and the difference has proven to be quite overwhelming.

I seem to be writing serious compositions every week. (It is 2:30 a.m. on the date of my deadline, and I have finally finished the latest one.) I continually wage wars against my mortal enemy, the dreaded Mathematics, and its nefarious sidekick, Filipino. (F is for Filipino.) Alas, I battle in vain. Taekwondo, although less futile, is strenuous and exhausting. Physics is surprisingly enjoyable (the shock of my life!) but very, very challenging. And org work? Fun, but at times, tedious.

There are fewer subjects now. (Thank God for small favors; I may never again have to pick up a needle and thread for Home Economics. There is hope!) Fewer subjects, yes, but at least twice the work, and twice the difficulty. The underachievers who slacked off through high school and survived, like myself, will be terribly shocked by the amount of effort needed to just pass.

This is not all that a freshman has to contend with, though. There are adjustments more difficult to make than those that are academic.

In my case, after spending 14 years at the same school with the same people, opening up to an entirely new crowd was extremely difficult. I was always an introverted, reclusive person, used to being around people who already knew me and were aware of my personality quirks. The thought of having to socialize, to introduce myself (and my personal culture) to people I didn’t know at all, was terrifying to me. I was sure that these strangers wouldn’t understand me. I already knew for a fact that they would be so put off by my perpetual silence and my unconquerable shyness that they wouldn’t bother to dig deeper and wait for my true, hyperactive self to emerge. They would think I was weird. (I’m decently skilled at the art of initial plastikan, though, and can fool people into thinking that I am actually cool for about 15 minutes.)

Thanks to the wonders of technology, however, people like me are able to safely retreat into the comfort of loud rock music. For a while, the iPod saved my life.

Still, it was depressing to see other people getting along so well and adjusting so easily to the new social hierarchy. I couldn’t understand why it was so hard for me to fall into the fold. I’d spend my breaks with former schoolmates, whether we were even close or not. I was unhappy. Eventually, I realized that the reason I couldn’t connect with anyone new was because I refused to let go of the past. I was still clinging to my happy life at Goldilockslandia.

I didn’t want to accept the fact that many of my close high school friends were elsewhere. I didn’t want the good old days to be over. My heart knew, though, that they were. Nothing would bring them back. I would have to move on.

Luckily, I am blessed with a bunch of equally zany, quirky blockmates who unwittingly helped me make the transition from my old life into the new. We enjoy campus crushes, great music, teasing, stalking, crazy in-jokes, weird facial expressions, silly hand movements, and Bob Espongha together.

My new life still isn’t as amazing as the old one was, but something inside me knows that someday, it’ll be even better. And nowadays, I actually look forward to tomorrow.

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You can e-mail me at bewaretheashtraygirl@yahoo.com.