why are you saying goodbye? we still have prom... we still have to graduate.(part of the highly emotional scene that inspired my ramblings)dang this is emotional. glad it didn't come out my senior year of high school - I probably would've been crying the whole time. as opposed to just crying at the end... which i felt silly about until I looked at Carolyn and Christina and they were also tearing up. and when I heard that Eleanor, one who does not cry ever, also teared up, well... I knew it was acceptable.
clearly I am talking about High School Musical 3. Watching it now... a Zefron-filled Easter thus far. thank Jesus for his talent.
Easter is a time for thanking God for what we have in life and rejoicing in what He has provided and just where we are in our lives and where we have been and just all of that fun stuff... moreso than Thanksgiving because, let's face it, how many of us really use Thanksgiving for that, contrived American holiday that it is.
but let's back up for a second. the reason I used "you can't just put off something as amazing as Stanford" as the title is because, well, why
can't we do something like that? It seems to be an American thing. We can't take time off: it's a sign of weakness, or laziness, or both. we want to get people through the system as quickly as possible. why? maybe so that they can become income-making machines that then become their very own consuming units. the more households, the more consumers, the more our ever-weakening economic system is supposed to thrive. what about our personal well-being? Why can't we take time off? In England, per example, one's choice of a "gap year" between high school graduation and one's start at university is a common occurance. it is accepted, almost expected, and definitely not frowned upon. At my high school I didn't even know I had any other options - it was college or you just fail at life. well that didn't exactly work out for my graduating class either - a high number of them managed to drop out, not go at all, get preggers, etc... now, clearly college is not for everyone. but where are the people who should be counceling us thusly? why was there NO ONE telling me that it's ok to maybe take a year off and, oh I don't know, do service of some sort. My friend freshman year - physics major in the pre-med basic science courses like me - had actually just come from a year of service with AmeriCorp. I remember being SO impressed with him and just schocked that someone would even consider doing something straight out of high school. Why was I so shocked? Why is it this way in America? It doesn't have to be.
I've seen so many people come through this school and burn out - early on or later (ie. now). and the ones I respect most are the people who managed to take a semester or year off because it was just not the right place for them at the time. a large number of them return; some don't but I don't think that's bad at all. in the past two years while talking to a number of people over at the Counceling Center - that's right, I frequent the place after the school nearly killed me my freshman year - almost each and every one of them has told me that I seem to be struggling for a purpose (true, I don't see a point to the college system as is) and why don't I take a year off for service or something. well, I was a) too cowardly but also b) afraid that I would mange to never return to either ND or college at all (and end up wasting an inordinant amount of money). so I stayed. I probably shouldn't have, but there it is. this school is the most amazing most suffocating place on the planet. I'm so glad I'm here, and yet over spring break I managed to say that my biggest mistake was deciding to attend Notre Dame in the first place. confusing? yes. but oh well! I've learned so much and discovered that, despite the annoyance of uniformity, the people here are relatively amazing and just nice (and, hahaha, pretty freaking driven). I've gotten over complaining about how much people study/are so smart - because God knows that if I were somewhere else with less-intellectual people I'd probably be the most irritated. (you know, like in the regular classes in high school like theology and such which didn't differentiate academic ablility like AP classes did).
my lack of academic motivation or my late nights and last minute paper writing probably stem from my lack of understanding to the purpose of my "higher education"... and while I enjoy learning I just can't seem to do my reading or anything of the sort. the most motivated I've been in the past three years was in London. my classes and professors were incredible. what was the difference between them and my profs here? I can't put my finger on it... the profs here care, but it probably relates to their American nature that they're not going to approach me about problems, I'll have to appraoch them. and I'm usually too late. my Mexican photography professor is by far my favorite this semester (my fave class too, obviously). he cares. and while he's just insane and can get serious, he's just hispanic. the latino culture is something I just miss while I'm here. this class offers me that. and my God, I love it. (really, this belongs in a whole other post).
guess who's not getting a real job for as long as possible? yeah. service of all sorts is in my future. maybe Law School or some other Environmental Science - related grad school program that will somehow make me appear more credible on paper.
HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3!!!
first day back: a group of us decided to leave campus. the tiny car took 30 minutes to dig out. here, Dani digs and Katie C looks on. :-)
Katie's ears got cold.
