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[Vector]

Thanks... I'm okay, I think.  I've just been trying to figure out why this semester has been sending me around so many bends, and I've basically narrowed it down to "babe, your schedule is basically impossible to succeed in."  I don't have time to think seriously.  It is an environment in which I cannot succeed.

I may be bored out of my skull when I only take four courses, but at least I don't feel like I'm busy dying.  I have so many projects I want to pursue, none of which I can get a minute in edgewise to work on.  I can barely finish my week's work.  Though I will very, very probably get pretty good grades in most of these courses (with the possible exception of logic), I don't feel comfortable with the material in general, or like I am really having time to thrive and achieve mastery.

So there you have it.  I'm going to have to bite off a smaller, tastier chunk of the pie for now on.

[Jackrabbit]

Hey, slow and steady ect. Vector. You're frigging 21 and I doubt I'll know as much as you when I'm 40. You've time enough to learn everything about everything ever.

[Aqizzar]

So there you have it.  I'm going to have to bite off a smaller, tastier chunk of the pie for now on.

This is the most important lesson you can learn in college, and it's why you need express permission to take more than 15 hours a semester.  College is not like a normal job, where you devote a block of time each day and leave it there.  It's mentally exhausting, and gets exponentially so with each course above four.  Heck, some of the worst semesters I ever had were with just three classes (of course, I had a job during college too).

You have to know and appreciate your limits.  You can try to stretch yourself, you can try to get Moar Brainier if you think it's possible, but first you have to know exactly what you're already capable of under strain.

And yeah, I don't know how people get all these cah-razy stories about how much fun stuff and personal achievements they had in college.  I never devoted myself nearly as much as you (suffer for it though I do), and I savored every block of exams because it meant I'd have a week or two of free time.  I have this sneaking suspicion that most people who claim to have exciting adventures in college didn't actually have any classes or work.

[ChairmanPoo]

I think more or less, and sooner or latter, depending on your character and how much stuff  you've had to gobble down, everyone ends up in that situation.

It's funny, a couple of days ago I had a sudden bout of nostalgia when I saw a couple of girls entering their university. Then upon reflection I realized that in truth I was far more stressed back then than I am now. And that's despite the fact that I still have to study a lot (but at least I have a degree to fall back on, now. Back at university that's the very thing that was in question. This alone makes "now" better than "then")

I think that those claims of "oh the fun I had in university" are based mostly on partial and biased recollections of particularily good moments while glossing over the bad ones.

[Jackrabbit]

Probably, though I'm guessing and uninformed, also influenced by the fact that college is often the first and biggest thing in a person's life in those few years after they become adults and begin to get used to that fact. Certainly both my parents thing it was fantastic. I particularly enjoy the story of how my dad came home drunk and smeared jam on all the light fittings.

[Dsarker]

Tall poppy syndrome.

[RedKing]

I think for me, college was nostalgic because:

A. Life was still full of possibilities. I could daydream about what kind of job I was going to have someday. Nothing was settled yet.
B. I was only responsible for myself. There's an incredible freedom in that. If I wanted to say, "Fuck it...I'm selling everything and entering a monastery" (which I almost did), that was actually plausible. For one, I had very little to sell. And two, no one but me depended on my earning an income. I could live as spare a life as I was personally willing to endure.

It really doesn't take that long before A disappears. And once you have a significant other, B gets really tough. Once you have children, it pretty much disappears unless you're willing to drag your children through your personal madness.

There's also the hindsight. College is like that really good save point before you got into the main storyline, where you could go back and take a completely different path if you wanted to. If life worked like that. Which it really should. 

[Bardum Idith]

I read a few posts of this thread.
I am sad now

[Greiger]

My two weeks notice just went by at my old job.  But my new job has had some unexpected delays.  Mostly my new boss' partner not wanting to hire extra employees for a month or so.  My new boss wants me there as soon as possible because he worked with me before and knew I do good work.  I'm pretty sure my boss has the final say on the matter, as the founder and I guess what would be the CEO from my limited knowledge of complicated business, but he does not want to blatantly go against the advice of the others he's working with.

So now I'm unemployed for an indeterminate amount of time, even though I tried to do everything right this time.  And it's my dad's birthday today, so I either drop the bad news today, or try to hide it for a few days to not put a damper on it.


*I'm a little happy because I hated that old job (I'll miss some of the people though, I got a little choked up when I turned in my access key to HR, who was the only higher up person there who had any care in the world for the working grunts, and went out of her way to make life a little less hellish.),
*I'm a little annoyed at my new job because I would not have put in my two weeks already if I had known that was going on.
*And a little dissapointed with myself for being overzealous and putting in my two weeks notice in the first place after my new boss only gave me a vague estimate of two weeks.

Oh well, what can a person do I guess.  I'll just have to hope it works out in the end.

[ChairmanPoo]

There's also the hindsight. College is like that really good save point before you got into the main storyline, where you could go back and take a completely different path if you wanted to.

Yeah, there's that.

I became nostalgic yesterday on that. I was checking the website of the university where my mother wanted me to study law, when I was a kid. I'm very happy with what I did (which was what I wanted, anyway), mind you, but I began to wonder how it would have been, and the thought of meeting people who have been significant to me in the street yet not recognizing each other tends to turn me off...

In general I tend to think that it happened as it had to happen.

[Erkki]

I think for me, college was nostalgic because:

A. Life was still full of possibilities. I could daydream about what kind of job I was going to have someday. Nothing was settled yet.
B. I was only responsible for myself. There's an incredible freedom in that. If I wanted to say, "Fuck it...I'm selling everything and entering a monastery" (which I almost did), that was actually plausible. For one, I had very little to sell. And two, no one but me depended on my earning an income. I could live as spare a life as I was personally willing to endure.

It really doesn't take that long before A disappears. And once you have a significant other, B gets really tough. Once you have children, it pretty much disappears unless you're willing to drag your children through your personal madness.

There's also the hindsight. College is like that really good save point before you got into the main storyline, where you could go back and take a completely different path if you wanted to. If life worked like that. Which it really should. 

Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide
At a higher altitude with flag unfurled
We reached the dizzy heights of that dreamed up world

The grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounding
The nights of wonder

David Gilmour, Pink Floyd: High Hopes, from the album The Division Bell

[Vector]

I'd like to continue this discussion, but something vastly more pressing has come up.  Yes, more appropriate than school stress.

So apparently my alarm clock is completely broken.  Not any of the relevant parts, like the clock.  No.  Just the fucking dinger.  I thought I'd been sleeping through it.

The only thing that's been getting me to school on time for the past two weeks is fear of being late and a developing inability to sleep well.  Frankly, that is a little bit scary.

[Rose]

get an old clockwork alarm clock with actual bells.

[Vector]

I should.  I think I have one at home.

[Rose]

Then put it on a metal tray under a steel salad bowl.