Oh, College. What an experience it has been.
I was talking to my brother yesterday about college and how there are certain types of college students. Some kids go to college with no goal. Waste a bunch of money, stay hung over the majority of the time and drop out. Some take their education seriously, never have any fun and graduate in less than 4 years. Others are average and try to do their best, have fun and meet people, figure out what they can contribute to the world and graduate in a reasonable amount of time. I believe I fit the last category. There is also the category that Justin added in which some college students get into the liberal politics scene. They think they know what they're talking about when it comes to politics despite their real-life experience. They drink too many latte's and wear birkenstocks and think they are smarter than everyone else. Haha! Justin is right, and didn't even have to go to college. Oh, how I know people in this category too...I got me thinking about the past 6 years that I have been attending 3 schools...
So, at this time...I'd like to reminisce....lets start with my freshman year at UNC Charlotte (if you are completely bored that is and have nothing else to do right now...)
I started out my college career with every intention to make great grades, go to all of my classes, graduate with a psychology degree from UNC Charlotte and become a psychologist. Play with rats. Compare them to people. There is a quote I love about psychology, it says, "Magicians pull rabbits out of hats. Psychologists pull habits out of rats." But, it didn't work out. I found that I didn't LOVE psychology. I just LIKED it. My first psychology professor at UNC Charlotte was crazy. Literally. She looked like something straight out of a Tim Burton film. And she had this hoarse "i've smoked since I was 6 years old" laugh. It scared me. She scared me. And now that I think about it, maybe she had some ill effect on my decision to stray from psychology, out of fear that I might also end up as a character from the Nightmare before Christmas or something...just kidding.
My first year, I lived with one of my best friends, Elyse, in a tiny little 11th floor dorm room. We lived in a co-ed dorm that alternated floors of girls and boys. We somehow shoved all of our belongings into that tiny room that held two twin beds, two desks and two built-in closets. We had a pretty sweet set-up with our mini-fridge and microwave and pretty much lived off of easy mac and poptarts. No lie.We would eat supper together at the dining hall with our other dorm friends. We tried to eat at the dining hall as little as possible although we had meal plans that allowed us to eat there 3 times a day,every day. But, after a few meals, we found it was pretty gross. If we did eat there, it was either grilled cheese, pizza or cereal. I ate A LOT of cereal my freshman year. I also ate A LOT of bad for me food my freshman year, if you can't tell. I'm sure if my mother knew this, she'd be upset...We did love making ice cream cones there though. They had one of those machines, where you pulled down the lever and had to craftily swirl the cone to make the ice cream look decent and pile up right. Most of the time our ice cream cones looked like Helen Keller made them for us... But Elyse and I were good roommates. Probably one of the best roommates i've ever had. We laughed a lot, stayed up too late, skipped too many classses and almost failed our anthropology class that we had together. We would alternate days sometimes and just sign eachother in on the role (no i am not proud of this). I hated that class.
I also hated taking showers in the dorm. Elyse and I had our little bathroom station in the corner of our room beside the door. We had our towels hanging on a hook on the door and our little basket with holes in it holding our shampoos, soaps, loofas and razors on the ground. There was a constant puddle by the door. We also had special rubber flip flops for the shower only and we would squeak down the hallway and into the shower so that we would not catch any nasty dorm diseases...this made the whole showering thing quite slippery. I hated carting my little basket down the hallway trying not to slip in my flip flops at 8 am and hopefully getting one of the two showers on our hall. We shared a bathroom with 3 stalls, 3 sinks and 2 showers with about 8 other girls. I also hated walking into the bathroom in my towel ready to face the nasty shower and find a boy in his boxers walk out of one the stalls. Lovely.
We did meet lots of fun people living in the dorms though. The floor above ours was a boys floor and they seemed to just wander around our floor with their guitars and clever boy antics trying to woo us into their skinny freshman boy arms. It never worked on us. But, we did meet some fun guys that ended up joining in our nightly ice cream cone making at the dining hall. I didn't hang out with them much though because I was "the girl with the boyfriend."
When I graduated from highschool, I was still dating my boyfriend of then 2 years, Bryan. We hand't planned to go to college together, but it worked out that way. I thought being at the same college would be fantastic! But, I found that when I got to college, Bryan and I wanted separate things. I wanted this newfound freedom & social life. He wasn't as interested in meeting lots of people and had always done what he wanted to. This first year of school tore us apart. I dated a few other guys, this was mostly not worth it, but I did meet some interesting people and learned a lot. Bryan and I started dating again shortly after our breakup and continued to date through my sophmore year.
I also spent this first year of freedom going inactive from the church. My new found freedom was too much for me to handle and be responsible. Little by little, I started doing things I knew weren't right, and little by little, I didn't care anymore.
My heart hadn't been in church for the past few years, but I had gone for my family. Living in the Sistrunk house came with strict rules about church attendance. But, after I got out of my house and on my own, I found that I didn't care to get up on Sunday mornings and go to church. There are 4 people whom I owe for life for keeping me connected to church. The first, I won't mention his name, but I owe a certain somebody for coming to my dorm many Sunday mornings and persistently knocking until I got up, got ready, and went to church with him. Although I still didn't care these Sundays, I was still going. I will also be eternally indebted to Jimmy Webb, our singles branch president at the time, and his sweet wife, Beth, who would call me the days I didn't go to church just to tell me that they missed me. They never pried into my life or challenged why I wasn't there, they just called to tell me that they cared. This made a world of difference in my life. The last person is Emily Burton. Emily and I met at a psychology study and I had recognized her from the singles branch. We were friends instantly, and if you know Emily, you understand. She's an amazing person, who I felt never judged me. She lived on the third floor of the dorm I lived in and needed a ride to church. I felt motivated to at least take her some days and that got me there. I'm pretty sure she's like a secret guardian angel or something. Although I continued to be inactive for another year or so, these little contributions touched my stubborn soul.
These wonderful people who cared enough about me to get me to church also helped pave the way for an amazing future for me. Amelia Guffey had started attending the singles branch and her, Emily & I formed our famous threesome. We were also introduced to the Briggs brothers, Ryan & Stuart, and the five of us became super close, super fast. We hung out all of the time and did silly things like build forts and name ourselves after a family-favorite movie, Swiss Family Robinson. They were different from my other friends and I liked the way I felt around them. Our group was tight and maybe the most help in keeping me connected to the church. I had amazing examples who led their lives in ways that made me hate the way I was leading mine. And of course I had like, the biggest crush on Stu. It wasn't long before they would be leaving for missions and we would find ourselves writing them as if we had known them for years.
I somehow made semi-decent grades that year and decided to stick it out for another year at UNC Charlotte...we will go there another day. For now, I am just happy to have seen my Freshman year come and go. I don't regret anything in my life, I am just thankful that I have learned A LOT. And can I just say, I've come a long way Baby!
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