Tag Archives: #passion

Just yesterday I was reading an onward state blog (..yeah people actually blog even though they don’t have to for english class..crazy right?!) titled “Awkward Things You Do to Awkwardly Avoid Awkward Situations”. It was absolutely hilarious, I totally recommend it:http://onwardstate.com/2012/11/27/awkward-things-you-do-to-awkwardly-avoid-awkward-scenarios/. And I felt like I could relate to absolutely every scenario they touched on, whether it be tripping down Forum building’s steps, going for a drink that isn’t mine at starbucks, or even being in the shower when a girl comes in the shower next to me with her boyfriend for some “personal time”.

The amount of times the word awkward is used just in the title alone and the rise of the new TV show “AWKWARD.” and also the fact that my blog in high school was titled “Awkward moments. All day. Every day.”, is leading me to question is our generation just more awkward in general or do we just make a bigger deal out of mishaps and consider even the littlest things to be gaffes? May be all this texting/ avoiding social interaction is really getting to us.

Just today, I walked into a study lounge without knowing someone else was in there and found myself urged to leave. I couldn’t even sit next to someone I didn’t know for a couple hours to crank out some chem homework. The weird thing is, I consider myself a really social person. Also, today while I was walking with a friend and he stopped to talk to one of his friends who I didn’t know I felt extremely uncomfortable. Are you supposed to join in the conversation and look like a nosy creep? Stand there awkwardly kind of listening? Pretend to text and look like a disengaged brat? or (what I ended up doing) just say “I’ll catch ya later!” and walk away? They all seem like terrible ideas to me. Last awkward moment of today (yes this all happened in one day…I’m just an awkward magnet”): someone in my seminar class said that Africa scares him,  I thought this was preposterous and very rude to say so I screamed back loudly: “You can’t just say you’re afraid of a country!”. The whole class heard. Well, it turns out that Africa is actually a continent. They all proceeded to express their doubts about me actually being in the honors college. It was a good time…for them.

Anyways, so for the lengthiness, I didn’t realize I had this much steam to blow off. I guess the lesson of the day is that Africa is a CONTINENT. xoxo.

I always thought that college would be the place where I would find myself and my passion. But so far it has anything but that, which has been disappointing to say the least. I couldn’t even come up with a legitimate topic for a passion blog earlier this semester so I chose to go for an umbrella one of “reflections and sarcastic commentary on the life of a freshman”. I was so involved in high school that I never really had a specific passion. I even joined three separate career orientated clubs (Future Teachers of America, Health Careers Club, and Future Business Leaders of America). Clearly I couldn’t go into all of these career paths, and the way it looks right now I won’t be going into any. Yet I still enjoyed all three clubs. Perhaps my passion was looking for a passion or just being involved? It’s harder here. No one knows who you are. You’re not entitled to respect from your teachers because they knew your sisters were hard-workers. And I thought this would be good for me. No outside influences. I would just do what I wanted and feel no outside pressure to be an overachiever or run for senior class president. But I feel like since I got here all I do is schoolwork and in all my free time I simply sleep, eat, watch tv, or on weekends binge….eat. I joined a THON org but I’m not nearly as crazed about it as everyone else. And I don’t want an unfulfilled life, but I can’t find what I need to give it meaning. Hopefully college gets easier as it goes on. That’s what everyone’s been saying. Sorry for the rant, I wasn’t trying to gather pity points. I guess it was just an honest reflection after a tough week but hey there’s always next week.

This past weekend I went home to host a canning weekend (and also because I missed my mommy and daddy). It was awesome. My parents showered me with small gifts and such and also gave me a bunch of cash! I was super excited to finally go back to my local Y to attend my favorite Zumba class, but I had completely forgotten about the zumba clique that had begun forming before I had left for college. They definitely had progressed into establishing a Zumba hierarchy. All the regular zumba go-ers that are part of their clique stand in the front and take up a bunch of space so that their fellow girlfriends can stand with them and have a view that’s six times better than everyone else’s. My friend told me that they’ve even made an exclusive Facebook page. Everyone can see what’s on it and all the pictures of their outings (they all hang out before and after zumba and even on the weekends!) but can’t join in on the group. It’s like high school all over again. These bitches are the queen bees and the rest of us zumbaers want to be them. Next time I’m going to try to get to Zumba super early so I can dance next to them and may be even get invited to their Facebook group. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

(sorry this blog post is so late, I saved it as a draft instead of publishing it)

No, I’m not going to talk about having sex in the laundry room. I don’t know if that would be the most intimate place. But hey, may be if you’re looking for a change in scenery…..Well my love life isn’t quite blooming unless you consider the growing relationship between these 1 am blogposts and me, so I spend my time in the basement studying. Studying in the laundry room is a great way to distract yourself from the fact that you haven’t made sufficient new friends. The wonderful racket of the energy efficient dryers sucking all moisture out of our clothes, and the sound of the water trickling down into the washing machines, make me feel as if I belong. Actually, not quite but it’s the one place where you can look like a complete misfit and not feel like one because everyone around you is weirder and just as lonely. Anyways, this has been sufficiently depressing, sorry about that. Happy studying, hopefully midterms are over for most of you guys! And remember, if you ever look like a complete mess and feel really badly about yourself go study in the laundry room 🙂

I’m in love with my professor. Not in a romantic sense. I guess i just wish he was my dad. Is that weird? He took our class of 20 to dinner at his house (more like mansion…i feel like it was at least 13000 square feet) and it really just completed my life. His wife was so sweet and the food was absolutely phenomenal (they had baklava!). Also, he really just looks like a Turkish Santa Claus. It’s the cutest thing. But, as much as I love him I absolutely CANNOT stay awake in his class. Even though it’s not an 8 AM I just can’t deal with a powerpoint presentation every class with the lights off. I play that little game where my head tilts forward until it jerks back up and then it goes back down again. Once this starts, I can’t stay awake at all. Today in class I was knocked out for the last 20 minutes. All the other kids were hardcore judging, which is unfortunate because I still need to make friends and you’d think a freshman seminar would be the easiest class to do that in. They probably think  I’m like always hungover or a terrible student but I’m never hungover and I try not to be a terrible student. Whatever…YOLO(I know yolo makes no sense in this context…or ever. but still….). Because the kids in that class can’t quite appreciate me for the amount I contribute to the class (if there was a nominal way to measure it’d be negative), I have to try to impress them with my obvious social charm (aka me laughing at everything and joking about my life). Too bad, I can’t turn my charm on when I’m practically dead. Instead of going to lunch with a group of kids from the class after it’s over I normally just go upstairs to the EMS library and pass out for another hour and a half. Some people judge, I guess I have no shame in being a bum though. Next class I’ll try to wear matching socks so when I take off my  shoes at the library I won’t look like a hobo. Screw friends.

Whattuppp. Although I’m not taking any math courses this year I can’t avoid seeing math as a part of my new life here. My whole life is a series of graphs. Like legit. Here are a few examples:

The quality of my face is a sin curve. It goes up and down and up and down. I just want my skin to stay the same. Why the eff can’t it be a y =100 line?!?

My work ethic is a 1/x function. It progressively gets worse and worse. The only difference between 1/x and my work ethic is that the graph of my work ethic is not asymptotic. It has hit zero. And it’s like the third week of college. GREAT.

My awkwardness however approaches no limit (technically infinity) as x grows larger. Therefore, it is a 10000000^x function. What is the variable in this graph? Time. As time goes on I’ll only get more awkward at an alarmingly high rate.

The amount I care about how I look is like an absolute value curve. Decreasing until it reaches a point of ultimate lowness (basically right now…when I wear men’s clothing on a daily basis) then it begins to increase again. Just imagine a bunch of absolute value graphs one after another.

Anyways now that I am thoroughly mathed out (may be I should rethink this engineering major thing…) I want to end off with a piece of advice. DON’T EAT AT OTTO’S OR THE LIBRARY CAFÉ’S BECAUSE YOU WILL GO BROKE AND HAVE NO MEALS POINTS LEFT. Xoxo.

I’ve always been one of those people that no one likes to sleep next to. I kick, hog the blanket, and sprawl out so that no single inch of a bed it’s in close contact with my body.

At home, I have a queen sized bed. And although honors hosuing is nice, it’s not that nice, so I’ve been forced to squeeze my wild sleeper into a tiny twin bed (it being extra-long doesn’t really help considering I’m pretty short).

This morning after having a rough night of barely any sleep because of my crazy econ professor I somehow managed to roll off the bed onto the floor. I have bedrisers so it’s a pretty long drop. Waking up to the nice hard fake wood flooring and a back searing with pain was pretty fun. It really just helped me get in the right mood to start of a day loaded with classes and a shit ton of homework. Not.

My mood didn’t improve after leaving my room. Walking to my 8 am econ class was no fun with all my joints aching and so after sleeping through fifty minutes of complex graphs and weird examples of marginal propensity to consume involving squirrels I decided I was going to take the bus home. That would’ve been a great idea, but…I’m a freshman.

It was my first time taking the bus and I ended up taking one that takes you downtown and ended up even farther than my original class (which was a 20 minute walk away). After getting home I knew all I needed was a nap…on my evil bed. But I napped successfully, so successfully that I missed my next class which only has 20 people.

The day hasn’t improved too much.

Anyways, I don’t really know what the purpose of this post was besides venting about my struggles. May be I thought it would put me in a better mood but it’s kind of just made me madder seeing how sucky my day was in print. I guess my advice for fellow freshman is that you better get used to sleeping on your twinsized bed or get a sleeping bag for the floor (my plan for tonight). xoxo.

Helllllo fellow freshman. It’s been three weeks. And they’ve been real. But before we get the impression that we’re settling in and becoming part of Penn State society we have to keep in mind, WE ARE….freshman. As much as we think we’ve learned about campus life, we sure as hell got a lot more to learn. Freshmen (at least me) get sucked into all the classes/clubs/events that upperclassmen know to avoid. Since we’re all on the same, uneven playing field we have to look out for each other. So I’m going to give you all a piece of advice: free meals don’t come easy.

We’ve all seen a bunch of advertisements for clubs and discussions and such that always say in huge, bold typeface “food will be served”. I’m not going to lie. I LOVE FOOD. So naturally I’ve attended multiple club meetings and events for the food.

Let me give you an example.

Today my friend (actually I don’t know if I can consider him my friend…we met like two days ago, but it’s weird to refer to someone as your acquaintance) Adi couldn’t attend a Schreyer faculty dinner he had signed up for. He said it was free dinner downtown and asked if I wanted to go in his place. Of course I was like “HELL YEAH!”.

When I got there (kinda late because the lady drawing my blood felt the need to stick the needle into my skin 5 different times) everyone else had nametags and was sitting down at a table across from a professor who taught some sort of sociology. Apparently the focus of the dinner was a discussion on the changing roles of adults. It may sound simple, but this guy was saying some complex stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I’m down for deep discussion sometimes but I was just not feeling it. So I basically sat through a two hour discussion about how Barbie dolls were sex instruments and how our generation sucks (which surprisingly was declared by most of the students and not the professor), while slurping my Mango Lassi and making snide comments under my breath.

I’m not one who likes mixing work and play, or I guess work and food so next time there’s an opportunity for free food I am definitely going to think twice. Hope you do the same. Xoxo.