We are now closer to the end of the semester than we are the beginning. The peak is behind us. What is left is the journey downhill to the finish line.
So, now seems as good a time as any to take stock of the happenings of the first half of the semester and reflect.
It’s August 18 – less than a week before classes begin, and I still do not have a place to live. Not because I haven’t tried. I’ve searched down every street and avenue, every back alley and side road this town has to offer, looking for the perfect place.
That’s something I gave up on after the third trip to Huntington, a third waste of gas, time, energy, all in vain. Apartment hunting, I discovered, is not my forte.
Now, I just want comfort. Not leisure — comfort. I only want a place to come to at the end of the day and feel at least somewhat at home, comfortable enough to relax.
Cue the 18th. I found just the right place. Two days later I move in (and spend the subsequent weeks trying to make the apartment my own, at which I am eventually successful).
The semester begins, and I still have some kinks in my class schedule to work out. Those are taken care of the first week, and the second week, I begin to focus on my schoolwork.
There’s just one problem. There’s something missing inside of myself, something that distracts me from what I should be focusing on.
What it could be is all Greek to me, but I know it is there. I can feel this point of emptiness pulling at me.
I search for something to fill the spot of barrenness inside me, all the while performing to the best of my ability (but not the best of my focus) on my education.
Here I am, the first week of November and it’s still there.
I still feel incomplete in many ways, and I have since had a “mid-college crisis” that has left me asking myself what I want to do in life, or rather what curriculum would best equip me to do what it is that I want to do.
Thinking about not double majoring so that I could focus solely on one major, I went to my journalism adviser.
He gave me a thought-provoking piece of advice: If you can be 100% in two majors, great, but perhaps it’s okay to be 75% in one and 75% in another. Perhaps it’s even better than only being 100% in one and 0% in the other. Maybe he’s correct. Knowing him, he probably is.
Either way, though, I am still undecided, conflicted, and I still feel the emptiness. I don’t know what it is, but I do know it’s still there.
It’s still there, I have to register for classes tomorrow for the spring semester (still have no clue what classes to take), and I still have this semester left to finish.
So, here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter how many peaks you cross if there was no fun in the climb.
For me, this semester has been hectic, stressful and internally conflicting for me. There have been a lot of fun moments, but it hasn’t been completely fun.
So, I’m changing my plan. What happens will happen.
Next semester, I am going to focus on doing my best, focus on whatever is happening in the moment and focus on making the climb fun for myself (and I have already initiated this in the form of an independent study on Toni Morrison).
I have a sneaking suspicion the feeling of emptiness could be the realization I have been working hard to get to the peak, getting there, and realizing I hadn’t taken pleasure in the climb.
We’ll see…
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