#archaeo 2

So, instead of the Ivy-esque scenery I’ve imagined up in my head, I get arm-length karabao grass with bumpy, cracked cement. Aged, discolored buildings shaded by creeping mangrove-y plants. Crowded libraries with rows of long untouched books on modest wooden shelves. And as a bonus: an unbelievable amount of stray cats lurking everywhere. How careless of me to think that the aesthetic qualities of the likes of Oxford, Harvard, and the sort could ever come close to the universities in my cozy little archipelago in the Pacific.

On the academic side of the coin, I discovered that, truly, freedom is something not to be taken lightly. For this first semester, I was given the choice to freely chose (1) a social science and philosophy course, and (2) a foreign language course apart from this semester’s required curriculum. Trust me, where I study, the amount of academic freedom given to its students is quite astounding that I really couldn’t make my mind up about which courses to take. There was a countless number of SSP courses and foreign languages to choose from and it actually took a couple of days—even weeks—to make up my mind. Finally, I ended up with Archaeo 2 (Archaeological Heritage; basically, Introduction to Archaeology) and French 10 (the elementary French course). I chose to take Archaeo 2 because of my undying love for history and Indiana Jones and French 10 because I’ve always thought it was a beautifully sounding language (plus, so that I can finally understand Edith Piaf and read those french music blogs with ease. They were both GEs (general education courses) anyway so I didn’t expect any difficulty in these subjects at all! In fact, I thought I was going to absolutely enjoy them! Naturally, I thought wrong.

 All jokes aside, these classes were nothing like what I expected. For Archaeology, I was hoping we’d take up famous archaeological sites and the significant events that happened there. Instead, I’ve been learning about the formation of rocks caused by geological phenomena, the deposition of different soil layers over time, and bones from a-tad-more-than-obscure historical locations—which is, to a point, quite interesting but really not what I signed up for. If I wanted to learn about rocks and gravel, I would probably have taken up something like Geology.

French 10, on the other hand, was more of a disappointment. I don’t want to dwell on it so let’s just say that I can sense that our French professor isn’t so fond of teaching my class, making us feel like a huge waste of time.

In the end, the two classes I was most excited for turned out to be the two I would dread waking up every morning for the most.

Apart from this, I also had the false notion that I would IMMEDIATELY meet people who are EXACTLY like me. I thought I’d meet people with the exact same belief system, ideologies, political views, interests, food preferences, etc. Now that I think about it, that was a pretty unbelievable expectation to have for a state university that cater to all religions, social class, political stands, and even sexuality.

From these unfortunate letdowns, I immediately assumed that I wouldn’t be enjoying my stay at the university I chose to enroll in. Oftentimes, I would begin to think how I would have ended up if I opted to accept my slot at “the” blue school in Katipunan instead or took my scholarship and stipend at the one in Ortigas. Surely, I wouldn’t be too far from my comfort zone there. Perhaps the professors there would treat us a little better. Maybe I would have met more people on the same wavelength as me, I would tell myself. I brooded continually and confined myself in an isolated period of regret, not opening up to any of my friends about my personal ordeal. Because of this, I was too discouraged to study, and too bothered to care about making new friends. At this point, I became excessively clingy towards my old friends and overly nostalgic about my Glory Days in high school. Looking back at myself now, I’d say it was pretty damn pathetic. Luckily for me, I realized that soon enough.

I guess one lesson learned from this is that I shouldn’t have expected too much. I filled up my cup and didn’t let new ideas to flow in. I kept a closed mind. I shut the full cup.

College is college and there will always be courses that are much more than what we signed up for. There will always be professors that will make you feel like a pathetic excuse for a student. There will always be people who have different perspectives than you who may even condemn you for it. And, there will ALWAYS be an endless supply of stray cats in our country. I carelessly assumed that college would rid me of all the problems and worries of the past and bless me with the glorious (but actually quite overwhelming) gift of a fresh, new life—a clean slate. Because of my assumptions, I completely forgot about why I chose to accept my slot at the state university in the first place. I didn’t go to the university to admire the picturesque view. Nor did I go there to get spoon-fed by professors. And, I most definitely didn’t go there just to feel like I belong. I chose to go to the state university over the others for the experience and the life lessons I’ll be learning from there. With all due respect, there are so many things that can still be fixed or improved in my university, but I guess these are the imperfections I can use to reflect the imperfections in myself. I knew that the university would prepare me not only for my future career, but also life in general. I guess all I have to do is to let it teach me, hardships, ugliness, cats, and all.