Tag Archives: life

Still Here to Tell the Tale

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another year at SUNY Oswego (or, to freshmen and transfers, welcome to your first year). I, for one, am so ecstatic to be back and am looking forward to my senior year. There are definitely nerve-wracking worries, such as student teaching in the spring (with absolutely no education classes left save the Practicum that I am doing this semester), but I have a fairly good feeling that this will be a really good year, and my hope is that everyone else feels the same way – positive and confident. If you’re new here, just know that, for the most part, I have had a very good experience here at SUNY Oswego. My experience here has been great, not only because I feel like I have had a really good education, but because just about everyone that I have encountered is very friendly and welcoming, and I have yet to experience any kind of persecution due to my sexuality, and that is ultimately the first experience of my life about which I can say that. SUNY Oswego prides itself on being a “safe space” for people, so persecution because of race, religion, sexuality, you name it, is not tolerated, and based on my own experience, it isn’t even something that you have to worry about.

My plans for the future are somewhat complex, as I have yet to sort some problems out. My boyfriend is here and is way behind even though he is the same age because many of his transfer credits don’t count toward classes that he needs to take, so he is considered a junior even though he should be a senior. This means that we will not graduate together, and he will need to stay a year longer than I do, but I am not prepared to leave him behind. I am twenty-one, and he will be twenty-two in November, so we are certainly not children, and I’m more than ready to begin a life with him. I would absolutely love to find an apartment with him by the end of this year, stay in Oswego over the summer, and then complete my graduate work here at SUNY Oswego. However, money has to be taken into consideration, and the job that I have doesn’t pay nearly enough to provide me with confidence as far as saving up for an apartment is concerned, and I neither have the time nor the ability to work a second job (ability only because I have actually tried, and no one hires). I applied to be a DA, figuring that that wouldn’t be a time obstacle because I could get homework done while I was working, but I didn’t get the position, and even if I could rely on someone actually hiring me, there really isn’t anything else I could manage to do, especially since, again, I am doing my student teaching in the spring. There is no way that I could balance that and two jobs. I just hope that, somehow, everything works itself out, because this is really important to me. Does anyone know if it would be possible (and if so, how) to take out a loan to help me pay for an apartment? I am considering this also because the job that I do have is work-study contingent, and although I don’t know for sure, I don’t think that that will still be provided beyond my undergraduate years. Again, I am really looking forward to this year and am hoping for the best. Good luck, everyone.

Stressful Week

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So, I have some good news. I am officially an employee of the Office of Learning Services. I will be tutoring for English 271, which is really good. I could really use the extra money, even though I already have one job. Last semester, I took English 271, and it wasn’t long before I realized that I’d really like to tutor for the class. English grammar is something that comes naturally to me, and the class was an easy A. I’m really glad, however, that I took it, because I’m really happy to now be able to tutor for it. My plan is to contact Michael Murphy, the professor who teaches the class, but if you’re reading this and you take English 271, then go to http://www.oswego.edu/ols if you think that you might need a tutor. There, I believe that you can fill out an application to be appointed a tutor.

Anyway, there was a minor incident today that has unfortunately kind of ruined my weekend, one that I don’t really want to get into. I am trying to make the best of it, though. It’s not anything really serious; I mean, it’s not like anyone died or anything like that. I just feel “stabbed in the back” by someone who is supposed to be my friend, and the worst part is that when I mentioned it to him, attempting to talk about it, he said something that kind of made it look like I was the one who was being ridiculous. I’m not going to get into it with any more detail, though, primarily because it is unimportant. This entire past week has been incredibly stressful.

For starters, my computer broke, and for quite a while, whether or not I would have a computer between now and March (when I’m going home for Spring Break) when I could have it fixed was up in the air. This happened on Monday, and what ended up happening is that today (as in Friday), my mom came up to Oswego to bring me the laptop from home and take mine so that she could take it somewhere to get it fixed. They apparently told her that it’s going to take a couple of days and is going to cost $150, which is ridiculous. There’s no way that it costs $150 worth of labor or equipment to get rid of a virus from a computer, but all the same, I am really thankful for my mother doing what she did. I don’t know how I’d survive without my computer, and I haven’t. Anyway, I am sure that all of the stress built up this past week had a great deal to do with how I reacted to what happened to me today, and I am hoping that the issue can be resolved, but for now, I am thinking that this is about all that I wanted to write about this time around. I am sure that I’ll be writing again soon.

Some Random Thoughts

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Sometimes, I wonder if maybe I post entries that are somewhat too personal. I mean, my understanding is that the purpose is to share college-related experiences that will maybe help high school students considering SUNY Oswego understand what life here is like, and sometimes, I share very personal stories, and maybe that isn’t appropriate; I don’t know. I do the best that I can to connect everything to my life here at Oswego, so hopefully, I am doing that successfully. I do, however, remember one blogger last semester suggesting that we do branch out a bit and talk about life experiences and such, so hopefully, I am still staying in the realm of what is appropriate.

Anyway, life has been pretty good lately. My friend David, who did live in Scales after transferring here just this semester, is now living in Waterbury with me. He moved in today, as in Tuesday. Additionally, I am really beginning to warm up to my EDU class. Today, we initiated our first discussion, and it was really interesting to discuss what we can do to make a difference in the school setting. Friday, I have to go to Sheldon at 11:30 to have a day and time set up for my Practicum, and I am feeling pretty bittersweet about that.

I am very happy to finally be taking part in courses pertaining to my major, courses that I actually want to be taking, but at the same time, it is so much work, and it is not that I am not disciplined. It could very well be that I am just taking too much work on myself. I will have that lengthy Practicum once a week, I have a Workstudy job, and additionally, I am hoping to tutor for English 271 this semester. Needless to say, it’s a packed semester with not a lot of time to myself, and that is my point. I am disciplined, and I do like staying busy, but also, I like having time to relax, and it seems like I don’t get very much time to relax; I don’t even get a little.

If you are indeed a high school student reading this and you’re considering SUNY Oswego as a possibility, please don’t let anything that I am saying to you dissuade you. I love college; I really do. No matter where you go to school, you’re going to get a lot of work, especially when you start getting heavy into your major. It’s simply part of the college experience, and it’s your job to find ways to balance that. For example, I have no issue balancing the life of a college student with a social life. I often do homework with friends and such. It’s really not that difficult. At the same time, however, you need to refrain from having too much fun if the amount of school work doesn’t allow it. Your education needs to be your top priority, and that kind of attitude is the only kind of attitude that is going to bring you success as a college student. If you don’t take it seriously, then your grades are going to reflect that, and that’s really all grades are; they are a reflection of how much you care.

For the past couple of days, I have been writing a lot. I like to write poetry. It really isn’t anything spectacular in my opinion, but it is something that I enjoy doing. It first allows me to unleash emotions and therefore feel them to the greatest extent and then allows me to free them. It’s incredible, and within the past couple of days, I think that I have written about five poems. Some are really short while others are a bit longer. It all depends on how much that I have to say. I bought a small-sized notebook at the campus store yesterday so that I would have something to write in if something spontaneous ever pops up, which does sometimes happen. I can, in fact, recall one called “Jet Engine” that I wrote while I was in a History class. Sometimes, I just get a spontaneous urge to write.

I feel like I am starting to get sick, but that isn’t really any surprise. With this spontaneous, unpredictable weather, it would be hard not to get sick. It seems like a good majority of my residence hall is sick. Anyway, as fellow LOST fans will know, the season premiere was on tonight, and this is an epic time for LOST fans, since this is the final season. The journey is almost over, and that is definitely sad. It’s too bad that the show has to be ending, but at the same time, every good story must come to an end. My two favorite shows on television right now are LOST and Fringe, and I can’t wait until Thursday. The final episode of Fringe before the spring hiatus will air, and I cannot wait for this episode. It looks like finally, the story is returning to the Cortexiphan arc of the mythology, and fellow Fringe fans will know what I am talking about. Anyway, I am sure that I will be writing again soon, but in the meantime, talk to you soon.

Back to School Soon

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Well, as promised, I am reporting on how my life in the past week has unfolded, and I am happy to say that it has unfolded in my favor. My mom has, more or less, decided to help me, and Wednesday was magical. Ray went to lunch with my mom and I, as planned, and afterward, we spent the day together at my house. My father was aware but displayed no problem with it, which means that hopefully, this is not an issue that I will run into again. Today, I saw him, as he spent the day with me and a group of friends. We attempted to see the Lovely Bones, but it wasn’t in showing in my hometown, and it was sold out at the next closest theater. We instead went shopping, and we had a great day.

My friend David, the one who will be living in Oswego this coming semester, received some good (not the best, but good) news yesterday. He will be living in Scales on the third floor with a student named Jacob. I can’t recall Jacob’s last name, but hopefully, he is a nice person with whom David will get along. We tried to room together this semester, but we tried unsuccessfully. Residence Life and Housing told him that because he is starting late, they have no room anywhere on campus that is completely empty. I don’t really care, because I really like my current roommate, but I just hope that David likes his, as well. Anyway, since he is in Scales and I am in Waterbury, we will be right next door to each other, which is good.

I can’t believe that I go back to school a week from tomorrow. That thought really is quite daunting. It seems as if the break went by so quickly. I hate that I might not be home for Valentine’s Day, but I am going to try to be. It falls on a Sunday this year, which means that I probably will not be spending the actual date with Ray, but we can always spend that Saturday together if I am able to come home that weekend. Anyway, if anything interesting comes up, I will try to write another blog entry before this coming weekend; otherwise, see everyone on campus next week!

Trapped

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I have to say that I had a great Christmas this year. It wasn’t perfect; for starters, I encountered a family issue the night of December 25th, but other than that, I had a great Christmas. Now, I’m just thinking about how quickly break is going by and how I feel about that. In a way, I am happy, because I miss all of my college friends, but at the same time, it is disappointing, because there are so many things that I would like to accomplish before returning to having very little time to myself, and it feels like I haven’t accomplished half of them. Luckily, however, the problem regarding the townhouses that I discussed earlier in my blog entries has been solved.

If you recall, the problem was that I was torn between whether or not I was going to live in the townhouses or live with my friend David, who is going to be a transfer student here. Well, here is what ended up happening. Unfortunately, not all of it is in my favor, but that’s all that you can expect out of life. You’re either going to get A or B, but it’s rare that you get both. Anyway, David successfully got into Oswego, so beginning this upcoming semester, he will be a student here. Therefore, when the time comes to request a roommate, he and I should be able to request each other for the Fall 2010 semester. At the same time, the Townhouses group has been dismembered. One of them has decided to live with a different group, and one of them has, more or less (to make a long story short), decided to stay in Waterbury.

Obviously, I gain something and lose something simultaneously. I will have David as a roommate, which is always a good thing, but the family that I have established will basically be dismembered, with everyone going their own separate ways. Things will not be the way that they are now, and that will be, at least at first, difficult to accept (I do not adapt to change well, especially when it is a change that involves me losing something). In time, I am sure that I will find a comfort zone, but it will indeed take time. In the meantime, I am trying to enjoy life as fully as is possible without allowing the future to meddle with me.

Right now, however, it’s not the future that’s meddling with me as much as it is the present. I am almost positive that I have mentioned it in an earlier blog entry, but if I haven’t, my father does not support my relationship. As a Christian, he does not support homosexuality in any way. He sees it as a serious sin and is therefore completely against gay marriage. It is something that is not easy for me to accept, because it is something that I not only feel very strongly about but also something that directly affects me. The issue therefore becomes a vicious circle; he can’t accept my relationship, I can’t accept his lack of acceptance, and he can’t accept my lack of acceptance of his lack of acceptance (sorry if that got confusing), and so forth.

Living in the same house with someone who believes that your lifestyle is the result of a devil having taken possession of you is not easy, to say the least. I have done the best that I can to talk to him in the past, telling him that homosexuality is something that you’re born with, not something that you choose, but his inability to see things liberally stands in his way and clouds his vision. He previously declared that Ray (my boyfriend, in case you didn’t know) can no longer come over, because, and I quote, “he is a bad influence on Cody and Eileene [my younger siblings].” I felt like saying to him that I guess I cannot be in the house, either, then, because, likewise, I am a bad influence on them, but I didn’t. I refrained from arguing with him, despite my natural instinct to do so, something that I fought relentlessly.

Right now, I feel trapped. I am going to be twenty years old in May, and I’ve gotten nowhere in life. The only feat that I have accomplished is that I am in college, and although that is a major feat, I admit, I don’t even have a car (I don’t even have my permit). The reason for that is because my parents either can’t or won’t help me financially. When I’m home, I don’t have a job, and when I’m in school, I can only earn a particular amount of money, since it is a work-study position. There’s no way that I could afford to pay for the course, pay for a car, pay for insurance and then pay for gas to fill the car; it is totally and completely unrealistic to even think about that; I’d need to be making thousands of dollars a year, which I don’t, not even close. So, whenever someone points out the illogicality of me being nineteen years old and not having a car, I help them realize that if it weren’t for their parents helping them out, they, likewise, would most likely be in the same boat.

I want to get an apartment with Ray and live on my own. I am tired of being dependent and am tired of having to work around my father’s strict rules to see him. This coming Wednesday (the 13th) will be nine months that we have been together, and it’s important to me that we spend it together. Normally, we can’t, because I’m in school, but now, I’m home, so it’s very important to me. I’m not sure how I’m going to go about arranging it. I have some ideas, but it feels like everything that I attempt blows up in my face and like I am therefore running low on options. I hate feeling caged, hate feeling trapped. It’s something that I want to escape, but there ultimately is no way to do so.

However, I don’t mean to be a downer and consistently write about negative aspects of my life. On a good note, I saw the new film Avatar tonight, and I am incredibly impressed. It reminds me of how movies can be magical and is so epically high on the scale of good movie-making that it is honestly the best movie that I have seen in a long time. It was very much a futuristic (the film takes place in the year 2154, I believe), sci-fi retelling of Pocahontas but epic, all the same. If you haven’t seen the film, then I highly recommend that you do. Trust me, it will blow your mind. Anyway, I guess that that is about it for now. I will do my best to check in again soon to let you all know how things turn out for me.

Winter Wonderland

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Something that I find really funny is how different this year has been from last year, how different my perspective is. The main reason I bring this is up is because, obviously, winter weather is here, something that I dreaded for quite some time. I typically hate snow and everything else about winter. I like for there to be snow around Christmastime, but then I am done with it and am ready for it to be gone, which obviously doesn’t happen. It sticks around for another three months or so, and as time goes on, it becomes dirtier and dirtier and heavier and heavier until it becomes incredibly overbearing. By late February, there is barely any white left. Instead, the snow is dirty, and as I said, it’s piled just about everywhere.

However, that really isn’t even the point, because last year, I was tired of the snow even prior to Christmas. Usually, I am, because I simply don’t like the snow and don’t understand why so many people seem to like it so much. It’s cold and wet, and here, it blows in your face and just about freezes the skin from it. It’s not anything that I would call fun. As I said, though, this year, my perspective has been different. The other night, I was walking from Waterbury to Lakeside with a group of friends for dinner, and it was snowing. I think that it may have been the first real snowfall of the season, and it just felt so oddly peaceful.

It’s one of those rare moments in life that you can’t explain. It arouses a feeling that cannot possibly be put into words, mainly because even though you know you liked the feeling, you can’t identify it. I was just happy to be here, so unbelievably happy to be with my friends. We were having a great time joking and laughing about something, and for some reason that, as I said, I can’t really explain, the light snow really seemed to enhance the experience. It was a really nice experience, one that I have in one way or another captured, since, as I said, they don’t happen all that often.

I am, however, going to make one small complaint. Although I cannot recall which day it was (I think that it may have been Tuesday), there was one day this week that I went to Culkin for something, and outside of the building was completely packed with ice. Something that I completely hate about the winter is the ice. I am scared to death of it, because I am afraid that I am going to fall. That’s probably rational, yet I see so many people walk across it seemingly not afraid, and they don’t fall either. I remember when I was in elementary school, and the bus would be waiting for me outside of my house in the morning, and I would walk so slow down my driveway, which was embarrassing, but it was because I was so scared that I was going to fall.

I really do think that things like that should be noticed and that when they are, something should be done about them. I don’t think that that area had been salted at all, and at least that probably would have helped. I really don’t mean to complain about things that seem petty, but that really could be potentially dangerous. You couldn’t really see the ice. The only reason I knew that it was there is because I was being especially cautious and was therefore looking for it, but most people don’t, and actually, now that I think of it, there was one man who was just walking out of Culkin, and when he noticed that I was walking so slow on the ice, he said that he had witnessed four people falling on it that day.

Anyway, on another subject, I can’t believe that tomorrow is the last day of classes. This semester has really flown by, and trust me, that is something for which I am grateful. For the most part, I would say that I have had a really good semester, but there have been bumps in the road, as there are in just about everything, and I am ready for this break, as I am sure a lot of us are. I can’t wait for finals to be over and for this semester to be officially over. I am going to be writing blogs over break, as well, so for those of you who read, be sure to check every now and then.

Still Afraid

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Wow, I have come to the realization that I have been writing a lot lately, and with that, I have therefore additionally come to the realization that I have been seemingly complaining a lot as well, and to this, I have to laugh, because I promise you, even though that is what the majority of my blogs as of late have been centered on, my life is not a terrible mess at the moment. For the most part, my stress level has been very low lately, because I know what I have to do between now and the end of the semester, and I have a plan as to when I am going to complete each assignment and about how long each assignment is going to take me. Stress has therefore not really been much of a plague lately, but as I have been saying a lot lately, fear of the future has been a plague.

Of course, I suppose that fearing the future is in itself some form of stress, but when I feel something powerful, such as fear or anger or even extreme happiness (even though I have come to find that, oddly enough, happiness is the most difficult emotion to express), I feel the need to write about it, and that is why I have been writing so much lately. In this particular case, as I have been saying, the future is bothering me to a great extent, and because of that, because that is really all that is bothering me right now, some of this may be a bit repetitive to those who have been following my blog entries, but even if that is the case, there have also been some new developments, ones that really aren’t either good or bad at this point, because since they don’t really clear anything up for me, they don’t help me.

As I said very recently, I emailed financial aid about my issue regarding the townhouses. For those of you who have not been following my blogs and thus don’t know what I’m talking about, a group of friends, basically my best friends here, want to live in the townhouses next year. This was not on my agenda at all. It didn’t become part of my agenda, in fact, until one of these friends told me one day that she was considering the townhouses next year, but at the time, I didn’t take her as seriously, because she didn’t seem insistent on it or determined, for that matter; it more seemed as if it was merely something that seemed like a good idea to her. Now, however, everyone is determined to make it happen, and I seem to be the only one who finds fault with it.

I understand that I am very seriously jumping around here, and I apologize for that, but by the end of the blog, I will try my hardest to tie everything up. Anyway, I seriously doubt that there are, but if there are any of you who are reading this and don’t know what I’m talking about when I refer to the “townhouses,” then when you get the chance, take a look at west campus, and you’ll see a good amount of new buildings being built by the lagoon behind Oneida Hall, and these are the townhouses. The benefit is that they’re sort of like apartments; you get your own bathroom, each one of you (six per apartment) get your own bedroom, etc., so needless to say, it’s an appealing idea, because it’s kind of like living in a house. However, in my personal opinion, the cons outweigh the pros, which is why up until this was mentioned, I wasn’t considering this even in the slightest.

My plan was always to live in Riggs and to hopefully do so with a roommate that I can pretty much count on getting along with (I didn’t have the greatest experiences last year as a freshman, and I was miserable). This year, the Riggs part didn’t happen, because it was full, and so I had to live in Waterbury, but first of all, I love Waterbury, and second of all, the latter did happen. A good friend of mine agreed to room with me, and so far, it couldn’t be any better. We get along great, and there’s a very hefty amount of respect between the two of us, not to mention the fact that, as I said before, he is part of this group that I keep mentioning, and the problem with that is that if he goes and I don’t, then I’m back to square one.

Anyway, allow me to list off what I see as the cons of living in the townhouses. For starters, I don’t see them as being very convenient for students who don’t have cars, which I don’t. It’s so far away from everything. I’d have to leave the house a good half-hour or so before each class begins to ensure that I get there on time, and of course, the simple solution to that is to take a bus, and in the winter time, that is most definitely what will be happening, but when the weather is nice, I don’t want to be taking a bus everywhere I go. I like walking when the weather is nice, not only because it gives me alone time to reflect and to enjoy the world around me but also because it’s a little bit of additional exercise. Secondly, back to the winter issue, buses run, so getting to class would not be an issue; however, on weekends when the weather is terrible (which describe weekends of which there will be plenty, something you have to count on when you live in Oswego), I see myself cooped up in the house all weekend long, not even leaving to eat since their plan is also just to cook at home.

Additionally, and this is the most pressing con, it is more expensive. I have been told that it costs a lot more, since you’re paying to live in a single, whereas now, I’m living in a double, and that would drastically affect my bill, since I highly doubt that financial aid would cover the difference. Returning to what I said earlier about financial aid returning my email, they said that they are unsure of whether or not they would cover it or not but that I should keep in mind that they might not, which sort of annoyed me, because I am keeping that in mind; that’s why I emailed them. Anyway, I’m not sure what to do, because one idea that they (my friends) are considering is reducing or potentially even canceling their meal plans just to cook at home, and if I did that, then maybe I’d be okay, since the price of living in the townhouses would replace the price of having a full meal plan; however, then, I’d have to drop money (which I only get $1,600 a year of, mind you) each week for groceries, so either way, I lose.

There is no way for me to win. As I said the other night, my friend David is considering coming to Oswego for his BA, but the problem with that is that, first of all, he’s not coming until fall 2010, and I need to either make a decision regarding the townhouses or select a roommate much earlier than that, and I can’t select him as a roommate if he doesn’t get here until fall, because he won’t be a student here yet. I would say that I need advice, but I don’t really need anything except to make a decision, and I can’t do that when I don’t know how much financial aid is going to help me as far as money is concerned, and although I hate the idea of being so disconnected from the campus and being in an area where there is nothing but residence halls and therefore being so far away from classes, the finances are what trouble me the most, so I can’t even begin to think until I get some closure as to whether or not that is going to be a problem, which I think it will be.

If I can’t live in the townhouses, the plus side is that I won’t have to deal with all of those cons that I previously listed, but what it also means, however, is that I risk rooming with a jerk that is going to be incredibly difficult to live with and who I don’t get along with, and it also means that I won’t be with my friends, that they’ll be all the way on the other side of campus having fun without me, and I’ll barely see them, and that’s something that I cannot handle, and I don’t want to ask them to consider forgetting about the townhouses for two reasons. First of all, that’s an awful lot to ask someone; I cannot and do not expect people to live their lives, making decisions, for me. Second of all, I know that they wouldn’t anyway. They’ve made it clear without actually explicitly saying so that they are pursuing this with or without me. I am more or less dispensable. If financial aid drops that bomb on me that says that they’re not going to cover my expenses and I therefore can’t do it, they’ll just find someone else. There is so much to think about, and I really, really hope that this works itself out.

The Horrific Future

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Have you ever felt insignificant in an environment that is so significant to you? If not, allow me to tell you how much it really does hurt and how overbearing of a feeling it is. There are some people to whom you could give the world, and they wouldn’t appreciate it. Your status would not elevate at all, because your status is not changeable; you just are who you are, you have the importance that you have, and you can’t really do anything about that no matter how hard you try. It feels a lot like being born into a “destined” caste system, in that even if you make the sacrificial attempts to elevate yourself, it doesn’t do any good, but now, I am beginning to get a bit repetitive.

It’s just that, sometimes, I feel as if high school never ends, if you will. You get to college thinking that everything will be different, and don’t get me wrong, it is; it’s very different, but the behaviors are different while the outcomes are the same, which is that someone gets hurt, because even though it’s typically a much different kind of drama, there is still a lot of drama. In this particular situation, I can’t exactly call it “drama,” but what I mean is that in high school, there were always people, like me, who were being ostracized in one way or another, such as myself, and again, it was under much different circumstances then, but really, that’s kind of how I feel now.

I feel as if there’s a ranking of importance that is consistently occurring just about everywhere that I go. Ideally and I would like to think somewhat realistically, there is not supposed to be a system of ranking in a group of friends. Obviously, in everyday life there is, because you’re obviously going to be more important to your significant other, for example, than you are to the stranger to whom you say “hi” at the newspaper stand, but in a group of friends, I don’t think that that type of thing should be occurring, and yet, I feel that, for me, it does, not necessarily frequently but from time to time.

I really do not want to go into specifics here, but I feel as if I have to if my goal is for you to understand how I am feeling. As I mentioned in my most previous blog, a group of friends here, my best friends here, really, want to live in the townhouses next year, an idea that they have been talking about for quite some time now, and initially, as much as it went against what my plans originally were, it was a bandwagon that I was prepared to jump on despite the inner-conflicts that I was experiencing as described in my most recent blog, because I didn’t care as long as I was with them, but I had an epiphany today, and not the good kind of “Eureka!” ones that happen every now and then but instead the bad kind of “Oh, no!” ones that happen even more often.

This epiphany was one that I am surprised I have not thought about prior to today, but whatever reason, I haven’t. To be perfectly honest, the only reason that I am here at this very moment is because the financial aid award that I received from SUNY Oswego was and is incredibly generous, and what I realized today is that since the townhouses are a bit more expensive than the residence halls, I will most likely be expected to pay a great deal of money out of my pocket since I very seriously doubt that financial aid would increase my award due to me living in the townhouses. I sent them an email quite recently asking them about it, but I honestly felt a bit embarrassed doing so, because I am essentially asking them if I will receive money due to a decision I ultimately make to live in a more expensive setting; it seems like a ridiculous question to even consider.

How this plays into what I was saying before is that I told them about this today, since today was really the first time that I really began to consider this, as I said before, and it didn’t really seem to faze them. The only thing that seemed to really bother them is the fact that now they have to look for yet another person to live with them, since they need six. I just feel as if it had been someone else besides me who was experiencing this problem or who, for that matter, decided that they didn’t want to do this, then the entire idea itself would be shot, because they couldn’t possibly do it without one of them but can without me. As I’m sure I have said before in a blog entry, I do tend to be a bit paranoid at times, and this does tend to have negative consequences in my life, but I have also noticed that it’s almost always people that I deeply care about toward whom I feel paranoid.

At this point, I really have no practical solution. My good friend David from home said that he might be able to come up here for school since he currently goes to a community college close to home, but here’s the problem. Most likely, he won’t be here next semester, which means that since he’ll be considered a transfer for the Fall 2010 semester, I will not be able to request him as a roommate, and even if I could, he most likely won’t be officially admitted until after I have to select a residence hall and thus a roommate, and the problem is, apart from my current roommate who is a part of the aforementioned group of friends, I don’t really have any guy friends here, not ones that I’m close enough to to live with, anyway.

I just don’t know what to do. I can’t help but shake the idea that the happiness and the near-perfection that I am experiencing now is one day very, very soon going to be obliterated due to change that I have no control over, change that I don’t understand why needs to happen, but change that I cannot and ultimately would not want to stop, anyway. My expectations are not to control peoples’ decisions, and I am certainly not self-centered in the least bit, especially not to the point where I’d want someone to completely defer an idea of theirs due to me and my monstrously long list of problems. I guess that I’d just like to feel a bit more important to people that are very important to me. Who knows? Maybe in some elaborately epic way, everything will work out. Sometimes, the universe has a way of self-correcting itself.

A Transition

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It is so difficult for me to believe how quickly winter is approaching, and it kind of scares me. Today, I went to Penfield with a couple of friends to do homework at around 3:30 or so, and by the time we were done at the library and therefore heading back to Waterbury (which was a little after 5), it was starting to get dark outside, and by the time we were back at Waterbury, it really was dark outside. The days are beginning to get shorter and shorter, and night falls earlier and earlier. Winter is right around the corner.

I don’t understand and I have never understood why some people love Winter, but that’s just my opinion. It gives me a feeling of being sheltered. Practically everything in nature is covered by a cold, white substance which dominates the earth for months, and I guess that it makes me feel the same way. It makes me feel cold and sheltered. In addition, most plants and trees are dead, and everyone, myself included, is more inclined to spend more time inside since it’s so cold out (and here, windy, too), and I hate that. The season itself affects my mood for the worse, and that is why I say that the approaching months scare me.

Don’t get me wrong; I love Christmas, and I love the snow when it’s here around the holiday season, but I often find myself (every year, in fact) wishing that it would go away afterward. Right now, I am really happy, but I suppose that my fear is that this current state is the “calm before the storm,” if you will, and that I don’t have very long before an end is put to it. Last year, my most difficult times, not only of my freshmen year but of my entire life thus far, were spent during the winter months, and I really don’t think that that is a coincidence.

Everyone enjoys “alone time” every now and then, myself included. However, I am pretty sure that I’d go clinically insane, as I think a lot of people would, if most of my time was spent alone, and last year, that’s how it was for me. I was primarily alone probably 80% of the time, and that time alone was primarily spent doing homework and studying. It was just an all-around difficult year for me, and at the end of the year, I made a pact that I was going to do everything that I possibly could to make this year a better one, to make it exceed last year on so many levels, and so far, I have done just that. I have been getting more sleep, I have managed my time more effectively, I have had a lot more fun, and I have had a much more accelerated social experience.

It’s kind of sad when I actually stop and think about that, because as happy as I am now, if only I had had everything last year that I have this year, if only I could have been as happy. If I had been, a great deal of pain would most likely have been prevented, and next year, I have a couple of friends who want to live in the townhouses, and likewise, that scares me, because even though I know that the townhouses aren’t exactly in the same vicinity as the residence halls on that side of campus (Oneida, ‘Daga, Cayuga and Seneca), but they are still on the same side of campus, and I’m so afraid that being on that side of campus again is going to bring back memories. I left that side of campus to avoid the trauma, and I love this side of campus.

You, whoever you are reading this, that is, might be wondering why it is that I don’t just tell them this and stay on this side of campus. “Surely, you have other friends,” you most likely wonder, and yes, I do. I have plenty, in fact. However, this particular group of friends is the closest to my heart and has been since I first started here last year as a freshmen, and I really don’t think that I could realistically live here without them and be happy. I will follow them wherever they go, and sometimes, although not always, there are ways around pain. Sometimes, there is help available for you, and that is yet another reason why I have not said to any of them that I don’t want to live in the townhouses. I know that if I am in pain for whatever reason, they’d be there to help me.

In the meantime, I am just going to relax and enjoy life and enjoy this school year. My problem is, I suppose you could say, that I fear change. When my life takes a turn for the good, I fear that something is going to ruin it, and when I become vehemently comfortable in a certain situation, the idea that it isn’t always going to be like that, that it is one day soon going to be drastically changed, really scares me. I have a lot of friends that I know I won’t be seeing too much of next year, especially on weekends in the winter time when there are no buses available, and no matter where I want to go on weekends in the winter time, for that matter, I’ll have the choice of either staying cooped up inside or venturing out into Oswego’s Winter chaos. There are a lot of aspects to the experience, such as those just mentioned, that I’m really not looking forward to by any means, but like I said, for now, I think I’m just going to look to the future as a positive enforcement and hope for the best, because after all, what else can I hope for?

Feeling Good

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Here I am, sitting in my room, and of all things, I’m actually thinking about how much I absolutely love college, and no, I ensure you, I am not insane. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was completely and entirely stressed, because I was so overwhelmed with work that needed to get done, and at this point, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but a reminder to all that feel as if negativity is consistently slamming them in the face is that life is full of lessons to be learned, and therefore, every experience becomes an opportunity. There was a quote that I read once, and as a matter of fact, I am pretty sure that it was on an edition of Toilet Talk that I read it, but it said something like a pessimist sees failure in every opportunity while an optimist sees opportunity in every failure, and I think that that speaks a great deal of meaning.

I’m, of course, not at all saying that when times are tough, you should just try to ignore them and think ahead, ignoring every conflicting situation that you are currently experiencing. “Everything is going to be okay” or “just look at the bright side” rarely, if ever, work, at least for me, anyway, because when you are experiencing a situation that is vehemently difficult to deal with, that’s all that’s on your mind at the time, and although you understand that whoever is trying to help means well, their words mean nothing at the time, but keep in mind that usually, if I’m correct in saying this, you’ll end up thanking them, because as it will turn out, they were right. There was a bright side, there was something to look forward to, and most importantly, there was something to learn, and as long as we do in fact learn the lessons that life so desperately wants us to learn, then we’re on the right track.

Just this past week, I kind of had a breakdown, because, once again, there was so much going on, and it seemed as if one unfortunate event right after another was hitting me like a brick in the face. I had a History paper to write, and I didn’t think that I had any idea whatsoever how to write it. Also, the last time that I went home, I discovered that my father had somehow discovered that I am in a relationship with a male, and since he is extremely religious, he believes that being gay is a choice and that it’s a sin, so he told me that Ray (my boyfriend) could no longer visit me anymore, specifically because he is a “bad influence” on my two younger siblings (a sister, 13, and a brother, 17), and the reality of what that meant caused me to hit rock bottom this past week as well. Ray and I have been together for almost eight months now, and never in my life have I been happier, and his coming over to my house was an easy and convenient way for us to spend time together; now, it’s not so easy, and when we do spend time together, it’s for much shorter periods of time, and we’re never alone.

This was eating away at me as well as a number of other problems, and as I usually do in situations such as this, I panicked, unsure of what to do. However, a friend of mine once said that the universe has a way of self-correcting itself. He didn’t come up with this on his own, of course, but I give him credit, because I am pretty sure that he is where I first heard it. Back when he first said it, I thought that it was utter nonsense, but my recent experiences have showed me that he was right. Almost everything that goes wrong results in something right, and what went wrong happened, because we were meant to learn something from it, and that is indeed something beautiful.

Just as a small example, college is obviously very stressful. As a student, I am consistently being challenged, and there is rarely a time that I am completely free and am able to do something relaxing. However, at the same time, there is a reward at the end of almost every long and winding road. I feel accomplished when I complete a challenging paper (which is exactly what I did this weekend, having worked for about four hours on my History paper), and I feel accomplished knowing that as a college sophomore, I have made it really far at this point, and continuing in this same direction is going to one day soon result in teaching high school students English Literature, something that I have been wanting to do for years, basically for as long as I can remember. I really do love college, because every now and then, I do get those relaxing moments where I can reflect on life and how good it has been being to me lately, how rewarding it feels to be productive and to get work done. Ultimately, going to college is a decision that I’m really glad that I made.