This week was a very slow week. One thing I had been looking forward to recently was going to eat acai bowl on the golf course. I have to say that the acai bowl there are the best I have ever had in my life. I also had my second driving school this week. This time we went out of the Town of ojai and up to the DMV in ventura. The last time we practiced was just going around the same roads so it was a lot of fun this time. I especially enjoyed driving on the highway for the first time. Driving at 100 km/h was fun, but changing lanes at that speed was very scary. I was especially scared of getting in between cars when the distance between them was very close. I am very nervous because I am going to take the test after the next practice session.
It’s been a couple months, a lot has changed. In approximately 30 hours I will have to plunge headfirst into your world, ready or not.
I told you before that I have bent, folded, and shaved off the idiosyncrasies, made myself two dimensional, and now — now you’ve figuratively and physically slapped me in the face with a decision that has so many facets to it I don’t think it belongs in the three dimensional world.
Every time I try to settle my heart and think about this I feel ill. Like I can’t think straight, like I’m drowning.
Explain to me how you chose me, so that I may choose you. Explain to me how I can possibly know what I want. Explain to me how I can barely stand to look at the name of college, imagine myself at college, without feeling like I’m buried alive with fear of making the wrong decision and hating myself for it.
Photo Credit: joshuanhook.com
I feel as though I am still stuck as two dimensions and that this decision requires at least four dimensions to be safe but actually in reality somewhere around six.
I am in fact more terrified now, the future now rests in my hands, not yours. What if mine aren’t big enough, what if they shake too much, what if they go to pull the wrong lever?
I have never been so scared in my life. I am so incredibly scared to make a decision that I won’t be able to live with, that I will close a door that would have been perfect.
I don’t know what I’m going to do, the hours are passing by, I have finals and APs coming but all I can do is sit and stare into space wondering what the hell I’m going to do with myself. Which in turn makes me more nervous because if this is how I’m handling it how am I going to handle the actual stress of college?
I’m left with the ultimate feeling of: if I feel like I’m pulling apart at the seams now, college is going to break me, and I don’t want to be broken.
Everyone else seems so able to say: “F**k it this is where I’m going.” They seem so okay, I can’t see if they feel like they’re dying inside, they all seem impervious to the nerves and the fear that they won’t live up to what they have told themselves they can do.
I haven’t lived nearly as much life as you, college reader, so what do I have to decide with, a handful of microbes in my gut that feel like they’ve just gotten off the teacup ride ready to vomit?
I don’t know what to do, who to be? Do I have the strength to rise in adversity, to swallow up those things that would make me sink? Do I have it in me to carve out my own path and people? How do I decide between totally different things that pull on me the same?
So, college reader, I told you who I was, apparently you liked me and now here I am.
Before I begin, let me say how much I love this school. OVS has provided me with a home away from home and friends that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
That being said, this school isn’t without its flaws. So, that’s what I’m here to talk about today.
Every Monday, the dormers have to dress to the nines and sit at the usual cafeteria plastic tables, but set with tablecloths and flowers in vases. Boys dress in their nice shoes and suits, while the girls step into their heels and flowy dresses. The dining hall’s aura is changed into that of a nice restaurant, instead of its usual casual conversations and colorful plates.
But, before any girl can make it across the hill, she has to go through dress check. Basically, she is required to check her outfit with a dorm parent. While this isn’t my main point, I must say that this process is, in its root, sexist. We have to make sure that our bra straps are concealed, our dresses aren’t “too short,” and that we look like “nice, young ladies.” Girls have to follow a strict set of rules and to what avail?
We all know that we can’t show our underwear and shouldn’t be wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I apologize severely if throughout my meal my bra strap distracts a boy or teacher from finishing their mashed potatoes. I’m sorry if the skirt of my dress shows my upper thigh when I first sit down or stand up.
Photo Credit: momomod.com
I’m not saying that I want to wear a cocktail dress to dinner. I just don’t get why a low back is so offensive if we are sitting down for the entirety of the meal?
Back to my main grievance for the day, a new rule has been put in place. During dress check, if our dress doesn’t meet any certain guideline, we will be given a dress to wear. Not just any dress, though. No. We’ll have a choice from one of the many new thrift shop garments hanging up in the lounge.
The dresses aren’t simply to meet the guidelines of the meal, but to embarrass those who don’t make it through dress check the first time around. Shouldn’t the whole purpose of dress check be to make sure our dresses are appropriate? If we are showing too much skin or our bra, we are expected to change. This system is in place to make sure that doesn’t happen. Why are we now being penalized for following the rules?
We are checking to make sure we can wear our outfits to dinner. That’s the whole point of that exercise. However, this check will become a test. If our dress doesn’t fit the needs of the school, we’ll have to put on an oversized piece of obnoxious floral cloth or an outdated two piece set.
Well, I guess I’ll have to make sure not to corrupt the young minds of the boys around me! And, hey, thrifted clothes are so in!
There comes a time in every senior’s career when they have to start picking colleges. Now, I’m far from being a senior, but I started thinking about colleges after going to the East Coast during spring break. Through all my time thinking about location, majors, and programs, one thing has stuck with me.
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How are we, as children, supposed to decide the course of our lives? When someone chooses a college, they chose their connections, their future job opportunities, and many other hidden factors. When we choose a major, we cut off most of our time to explore other subjects of thought.
Picture this: You walk in to Ms. Oberlander and Mr. Alvarez’s college meeting. You sit down, take out your laptop, and open Naviance. You take a look at the colleges you’re thinking about. UCSB, Chapman, Harvard, or Yale. You have your target schools, but you know in your heart you’re dying to go to your reach school. You raise your hand to go to the bathroom, interrupting Ms. Oberlander’s speech about freedom.
It’s a little ironic. When most students go to college, they don’t know how to handle themselves. Just three months before freshman orientation, they still had to ask to use the restroom. They still had their parents doing their laundry and making them dinner. Teachers still told them how to dress, how to act. At OVS, we have the unique opportunity to learn some of the skills most college students lack so that we are more prepared to take on this new challenge.
However, OVS (and any school for that matter) can’t prepare us for what’s out there. It can’t prepare you for the choice between going to class or playing video games. It can’t prepare you for the people who will hurt you or how to make friends. They can only cross their fingers and hope you succeed.
I think I’ve gone completely brain dead. After being away from school for two weeks, I have no recollection on how to get back into the swing of things.
“It’s easy” they say, as they stand at the front of the room handing me piles of worksheets and assignments to make up.
Yes, of course it is easy, WHEN THEY ARE THE ONE GIVING ME THE WORK AND NOT DOING IT.
I have a math test in two days. I don’t even remember how to use my calculator.
I know eventually I will fall back into my boring, monotonous routine of classes Monday through Friday and homework, Saturday through Sunday. But I know it will feel like an eternity until I fall back into those deep tracks.
Of course, as soon as I get myself back in the groove, it will time for yet another break and I will repeat this whole cycle over again.It
So now the end is near huh? The semester is ending and people are cramming like some hung over college kid for the bar exam. It’s chaos on the hill, and really it all begs the question, “Who are we kidding?”
There’s no way in hell that this weekend is enough to prepare a student for an exam based on an entire semester’s information. People think that studying this hard for an exam is going to help them.
I’ve got news for all of you. You’re better off not studying at all at this point rather than try and cram. You’re just going to confuse yourself with facts. There IS such a thing as too much studying.
Some guys have been holed up in their rooms this weekend in order to study, only coming out to use the bathroom. They even bring their books in the bathroom to study some more.
Dude, seriously you’re not gonna learn anymore by taking your textbook into the bathroom. Give yourself a minute and a half to use the toilet and go back if u wanna.
I just don’t get the obsession to study like a maniac.
My roommate just told me a saying that his region of China lives by.
“If you have a small test, have a little fun. If you have a big test, have a lot of fun.”
Today I took the SAT for the second time. I took it once before last year. I, like most first time takers of the test did not do nearly as well as I would have liked to. So for the second time I devoted about five hours of my saturday to taking a ten sectioned test that tests reading math and writing.
I will say it is probably one of the hardest tests I have ever taken and even will take. The questions are misleading and the constant jump between subjects make it long and arduous.
Although it seems impossible to tell how I did on it without seeing my scores, I feel I may have done better than my previous attempt, I guess all I can do is wait and see if I’ll be going to college or not when I get my results.
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