20 November 2012

School is Hard

Once upon a time, before the last moon, New Moon, full moon, or blue moon, I was born. It wasn’t such an exciting day. You’d think I’d remember it if it was.

September in So. California guaranteed that it was hot and muggy and really...my poor mother. Being pregnant in the summer is like swimming while wearing a bear skin rug after downing a bottle of ipecac.

I am a product of an idealistic mom and a carefree dad saying their “I do’s” in front of a preacher 9 months and one day prior to my birth. My entry in this world was scheduled. I like being organized. September baby. On par for the course. Hi, have you met me? I like organizing my organizing books.

That’s not to say that being born under a certain zodiac sign somehow shapes my future or by some cosmic way has predestined my life or character. I am more of the “environment shapes you”, kind of girl. And really, if a baby in utero is subject to the weather, sounds, and moods of the mother, then it only makes sense that a baby formed during sunshine and spring cleaning takes on common traits. In short, it shouldn’t be startling that we virgos are organizing, scheduling pseudo-OCD control freaks. Did I mention self-depreciating humor? Yes, that too.

Embracing this year with gusto, I find school dominates my every day. Talking about. Homeworking because. Driving to. Scheduling for. Talking about all of the above when people ask where I have disappeared to. School is some narcissistic way of declaring to the world that I’m smarter than you and I have a GPA to prove it.

Except for Doctors. They can go be smart college grads and make bank because if I'm ever in a car crash, I don’t want Mr. Doyouwantfrieswiththat to do my surgery. Surgery is best taught and learned in the expensive halls of academia.

No one tells you school is expensive. And school is haaard. I just want to make sick people better. Or just make sure they aren't shafted by their insurance company. So, why do I need to know the head bone is connected to the neck bone?

Do we consider the ramifications of an astronomical student loan that rivals the yearly income of our post-grad employment? Mixed messages come to us students via email "Congratulations On Your Financial Aid Award". Yay! An award I have to pay back.

Can you imagine a Publisher's Clearing House car unloading, guys get out with balloons and a giant cardboard bill, knocking on a winner's door. The guy answering his door in his wife-beater and slippers is stunned and his smile fades while handed a check that says, "AMOUNT DUE! $40,000.00"?

Ed McMahon is so getting punched in the face.

In school, I earn my bleary eyes and caffeine addictions couched between slam dunking a test and procrastination. I want the education but when you get down to brass tacks? I go to school for an entirely different reason: the reassurance that I’m not an idiot. 

I fear setting up camp in Idiotville, pop. 1. Being homeschooled had its advantages but it also never gave me the motivation and confidence to continue schooling back when my brain actually remembered things longer than 10 minutes.

Maybe I’m lazy?
Undecided on a line of employment?

As a teen, embarking on another four years living at home, building debt, and naively go on living forever didn’t appeal either. When you are 17, you truly, truly believe you will live forever. Add the violent denial that gravity will adversely affect your person in about ten years and you get exhibit A: Hey, lets skip school, get a big salary job because of my hot, young self and I'm starving. Pass the Cheetos. Everyone looks good at 17.

With ever present certainty, I continue to plod along in school. I continue to fight gravity with push up bras, expanding waistlines with carrot sticks and brain exercises like long division. And that lipo acid vitamin C stuff that makes airbrushed models look awesome. I endure so that maybe, just maybe, I will find my dream job and won't feel like an idiot.

~Bee would not like fries with that.
Listening to: Madness by Muse