April 29, 2014

Detachment

There is this thing called detachment. It is talked about in preparation for a big change. They always say when kids leave for college they spend the summer fighting with their families to make it easier to leave them. And its also when you lose personal investment and emotion, when you quit caring. Detachment has multiple definitions, and two of them describe this week to a T.

de·tach·ment

noun \di-ˈtach-mənt, dē-\
:lack of emotion or of personal interest

This seems to happen every semester. The end comes just as motivation starts to dwindle. Here I am piled high with tests, projects, and finals, and I can't seem to make myself care. I know that I need A's on everything, as usual. I know that my grades aren't where they should be, as usual. I know that I can work as hard as I want and all the effort could be for nothing. I know that I just want to be done with school and that this has been a very long 15 weeks. I know that I have to keep going for two more weeks, but I'm starting to lack emotion and personal interest. Sometimes I don't know if I ever had it.

de·tach·ment

noun \di-ˈtach-mənt, dē-\
: the act or process of separating something from a larger thing

The act of separating yourself from the people you've spent the last two years of your life living with, the act of separating yourself from the building you've lived in for the last two years, the act of becoming the first definition to cope with the second one. Yesterday I spent the whole day thinking someone was mad at me. I couldn't figure out why, and I spent the whole day stewing over what I was going to say, and do, and then when it came down to it nothing happened. She wasn't mad, and everything was fine. I feel like I'm more quick to anger lately. I feel like everyone is. We're all on edge from the workload and thought of change, and with everyone leaving, it's easier to be mad. It's hard to miss someone you are mad at. So maybe I'm okay with anger directed at me. Then I can be mad without it being my fault, and it makes it a little easier to leave.

We're hitting the homestretch with only two weeks left. We can do this. We have to.

Good Luck This Week and Next,

Noelle


April 22, 2014

The Future is Out There

I've started a post with this title a few times this week and then started ranting and gave up on it being a publishable post. Since I've got nothing due tomorrow, and my roommate is asleep, I'm currently sitting in the dark not sure what to do with this thing called free time. I promised Shirali I would post something, so here goes nothing.

Through all the time I have spent trying to figure out the career path I wish to take the hardest question for me has alway been, "Where do you see yourself in five years?" The question that people feel like is the key to knowing what to do now, but I can never seem to wrap my head around the concept of the future. I can't imagine me in five years. In my mind the future doesn't exist. I used to think maybe it was because I was going to die before I got to this major five years from now, but that idea is probably stupid. Just because I can't imagine it, doesn't mean it isn't going to happen.

I find that I am looking for another major change. I don't know why I can't seem to find something that makes me "happy." What is happiness anyway? Maybe happiness is just a myth we're all grasping to get a hold of. It has been pointed out that maybe I'm just looking for a quick fix for my current unhappiness. For some reason that has been a sticking point. I can't wrap my head around this future of mine, so maybe I'm just looking to fix what is wrong now. They say a degree is just the ways to an end but spending 4 years and a ton of money to discover the end game is just as bad as getting there is not my idea of a good plan.

I've also been told I'm not in tune with my spiritual future so I don't have a clue about my professional one. Another sticking point. Maybe its true. I don't know if knowing exactly what I want out of religion or what religion wants out of me is going to be the solution to my future. It might be one day, but I'm thinking of my more immediate one. But then I think about how I could die tomorrow, and that maybe I should get things straight with the man upstairs. Recently at a Psych research thing they asked me if I was a Christian and I wasn't sure how to answer, and then when I said no I felt ridiculously uneasy after leaving. I don't know if that means anything or not. Actually, I do know what it means, but I'm not one those people to want to make a big deal out of it. The whole "getting saved" thing and "finding Jesus" seems a little bit showy.

I'm always torn between the two mentalities of "Pick a career you love and you'll never work a day in your life" and "A job is a way to pay for all the things that make you happy outside of it" Can you have both? If you do it right I like to think you can. I suppose its all a matter of prospective.


I did a swear jar with my roommate this year for lent. We actually completed it this year with a sad, sad amount of money. Let's say I had to put $5 in after studying for one Organic Chemistry test.



 I also colored eggs for Easter. They were a little sad as well. Not remembering to buy vinegar was a mistake. Lemon juice does not work as a substitute for anyone that wanted to know. 
An open letter to my friends. I thought it was funny. I hope they did too. 
Two weeks of school left, and then finals, let the countdown begin,

Noelle

April 2, 2014

Universal Feelings

Sometimes I meet people and they seem intimidating. For whatever reason they give off a vibe of I am better than you or I'm not interested in interacting with you, or they're just plain weird. Some people are just like that, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. The people that seem to be the most intimidating, seem to be the people who know how to look like they have it all together. They're passionate, and driven and confident, all incredibly important traits, but those desirable traits are also ridiculously scary to an outsider. This feeling of intimidation seems to follow the same pattern every time. I get to know the person, and with their quirks and flaws, the intimidation goes away. I can't be intimidated by someone I've seen freak out in front of me, or do something hilariously embarrassing. It ruins the illusion that they are perfect people. So those qualities I see as an outside observer, that appearance they possess of having it all together, it seems to disappear when they become a human being.

Lately I've been thinking about endings. We just finished Spring Break and the semester is in its later weeks. I finally got closure to a television show I've been watching in a social lounge most of my college career, but I won't spoil it for anyone that wants to see it. Here is the thing about endings, they are inevitable. Everything ends. So at the end of the school year I'm going to leave the dorm I've lived in for the past two years and go home. The people that I see daily will be people I see weekly and then maybe monthly and then maybe for an awkward ten minute talk while in passing outside of the library. I've seen it happen with the friends I kept in high school. But, this time it seems different. So back to the television show, just as I was thinking about this, a main character quote appeared, "And that's how it goes kids. The friends, neighbors, drinking buddies and partners in crime you love so much when you're young, as the years go by, you just lose touch. You will be shocked, kids, when you discover how easy it is in life to part ways with people forever. That's why, when you find someone you want to keep around, you do something about it."

If there is lesson I've heard about feelings from all the feel-y people I've met the last two years, it's we all seem to have the same ones. We're all afraid of the same things. The future is as daunting to the people that appear to have it all together as it is to the one's that have more visible flaws. We all worry about what people think about us, and if we're doing the right thing with our lives. Fear, anxiety, loneliness, they're universal. But here is the thing, we're all going to be okay, and those intimidating people are scared just as shitless, the people that appear to be important now will come and go, ends will always happen, and life will continue go on.

There's my two cents for the night. And for all who were wondering there is a UAPatelFamily Twitter and the password isn't uberpatel. April (belated) Fools, Mom! Your children love you enough to prank you.

Over and out,

Noelle