One month ago today, I essentially crossed the proverbial border to adulthood. It was nothing short of a perfect sendoff for me and my classmates of the past four or more years. The ominous clouds that hung over our heads were a reminder of our infamous eight grade moving up ceremony and we got rained on again. Nevertheless, we continued. In between Ken’s Pixar speech and Sohail’s “Oh crap" speech, we were handed our diplomas. It didn’t really even hit me that I’m a high school student no more until the moment the caps went flying. We really made it.
I made it through high school, but I still have a lot of doubts about whether or not I’m ready for what I have in store for me. Going into orientation, I had a lot of questions. Questions about how I would fit in socially, how successful I will be.
To be completely honest, I came out of orientation questioning if I belong at Boston College even more. I’m not the typical BC student, but I’ve spent the past few years trying to not follow the crowd and to be myself. Despite refusing to accept the normal lifestyle of a high school student or now a college student, I have got by with great friends and satisfaction that I am who I want to be and not part of a social equation. Hopefully this will carry through in college. Yes, the college student culture is to party hard, go to football games, etc.; essentially, drug, sex, and alcohol. I often find it saddening to see that people often lose their individuality towards fitting into this culture. During the Italy trip, I was told that there is no way for me to stay sober throughout college. I don’t quite understand why there is so much doubt that I can keep to my beliefs. We’ll see in four years how that time I didn’t spend getting wasted and recovering from hangovers affects me.
To answer the latter question, I really do not know. I still have no way to gauge the difficulty of my classes. The things that I do know, however, is that I know what I want to achieve. I’m pretty confident that high school has set me up to understand my abilities in the classroom and in the real world. After just reading Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture,” it is even clearer to me now that attaining success comes with hard work and persistence. Never be afraid of asking questions and always strive to learn more. I believe that that is something I can do. Whether or not it works…? We’ll see. But for now, I’m ready to face these challenges.
I’m really not completely sure what I want for myself and what I’m building my life up to. Sometimes, I feel that my life goal is to work my way up to an established company and be some kind of a revolutionary leader. Sometimes, I want to start my own legacy; create something new and build my own empire. Other times, I think it’ll just be easier to settle for a common life. But, honestly, I think what I’ll enjoy most and get the most satisfaction out of is going out and trying to accomplish something substantial. I don’t know what that something is but maybe over I’ll figure it out over the next four years. Like the speaker at orientation said, the next four years is basically dedicated to trying to discover myself. Who I am and what I want to do.
You know something I want to do? I want to sing and dance. I wish I had some kind of artistic talent. Dancing just looks so fun and ridiculously hot. And it’s so easy to show off. Singing just seems like such an amazing way to express your feelings. Too bad I can’t do either of these. Oh, well.
Right now, sitting here, my biggest hope and concern is to make great college friends. I mean, a part of discovering who I am comes from the people around me. Hopefully college ends up not being nearly as frightful as I’m making it out to be in my head. It’s just terrifying that there’s the possibility that I won’t fit into the place that I will be spending ten months in. Only time will tell…
