The Joy of Collegiate Life

"You're not a true college person," Scobberlotch said with a mix of enthusiasm and sarcasm in her voice, "if you don't stay up until 2:00 in the morning with a bunch of friends throwing leaves at eachother."

Yeah, well, I'm a fan of having purpose in life.

But I am slowly breaking out of my shell of naivete, and I am learning that college is WAY different from high school, and it took me by surprise for the first couple of weeks.

First off, college actually expects me to be responsible. Go figure. I'm not opposed to it by any means, but I definitely am not used to it. In high school, they took me by the hand and practically pulled me through the system, coddling me and brushing me off if I fell. College, on the other hand, has taken me and set me on a track, pointed me in a direction, and said "Go."

Anyone who has witnessed me attempt to do something new knows that I become unsure, awkward, and incredibly foolish-looking every time someone tells me to simply "go." I stutter and stumble on my way, making more mistakes than normal. So the first few weeks of this semester have been, shall we say, shaky.

But I have to say, I love the fact that every student wants to be here. Well, almost every student. The ones that don't want to be here are those that know that they need to be here, so they go through the system along with everyone else. There aren't any of the obnoxious, "this is my life, you can't tell me what to do" crap. It's wonderful. On the first day of class, my Computer Applications teacher told the class

"You can come to class if you want. If you don't want to come to class, then don't. I really don't care." At that point, I said to myself "Finally." It's so nice to be in an environment where people don't force you to do anything or be anywhere.

But even that has its drawbacks. There's no one forcing you to do anything or be anywhere, so sometimes you're not doing what you need to be doing or where you need to be, simply because you don't have someone hounding you out every day. It's amazing what can happen, because if you don't keep up, it's your own effort that's going to get you back up.

It's frightening, to be honest.

But I'm learning, and slowly becoming familiar with the whole system.

Well, time for Bassercussionist to sign off, as he has a very large test in a few hours, and he must verily study for it.