#uni 2011

(I apologise if I come off as a privileged person. It is just for this post.)

At this very moment, I hate the reasons for why I chose to study creative writing at university.

They're little reasons.

"Because I can" and "because I need to be more creative" is not going to feed me when I am 30.

Well, depending on whether I stay in Australia, that is.

Because if I stay in Australia, it totally could.

Sort of.

Because, in Australia, I can be an entitled snot.

But in Canada--which is where I want to go--I wouldn't be that.

(But ultimately, this degree probably won't feed me, even in Australia.)

Which means I have to change my degree to something that will be able to sustain me in my old age.

I'm thinking about being a French teacher.

...No, I don't know anything about French.

But I can learn French at university.

I want to learn French at university, anyway.

Though, in Australia, I'd like to be a government translator.

But yeah, in Canada, I'd like to be a French teacher.

(Different countries = different demands)

It's not that hard to pick up the phone and say, "Mom/Dad, I got published," or to drive home and say it to their faces. But then I think about their faces. Their always impassive faces.

It kind of hit me just then: I don't know anything about them when it comes to what they think of what I'm doing. What do they tell people about what I'm doing? All I can remember is before I started what I'm doing that their primary concern was that I was going to a university far away. Not, "oh, why are you doing such an unusual degree?" or "don't you think it'll be hard to get a job after this?"

I don't know if it's because they don't care enough about what I'm doing (or at all) or because they do--if they care enough to want me to be happy by letting me do what I want. We've just never had this talk. It is one of many talks that we have never had, another non-existent talk I can add to the already large count.

I'm anxious as fuck right now.

I said I was going to experiment and I did. I've pulled all-nighters for assignments due the next day. I made it into the bro-hood; I have more guy friends than girl friends. I did weed. And this is where my experimentation has ended.

I won't drink; I won't drink and make out with someone. This is such an integral part of college life, but I won't get drunk because, I don't know, maybe I hate it? I don't hate it that much though. I'd do it if I was begged. I'd do it if it'd save the lives of starving children in Africa. But, damn, I look at my boys who do this so frequently and I just wonder: why do you do this? Do you need it? Are you doing this because you are young and this is what young people do? Do you think you will find yourself in this drunkenness? Or are you doing this because you know exactly who you are and can't stand to remember yourself?

I don't know when I became a person who stopped doing things she didn't want to do. I was so much more grown up as a teenager. Told myself I'd do it and I did. These days, I tell myself that I can do things, and by the time I "start" it I still feel as if I can, but I don't. I get tired instead. Very, very tired.

...So anyway, the reason I'm thinking about/personifying life and adulthood is because of writing. I know I want to write, but I'm not so sure if it's now, in the present, that I want to do this. And even if I do want this now, I'm not so sure I want to do this full time; I want to do this as a side project.

I feel as if no one gets just how zoned out I am right now. Or maybe I'm just not letting on how much this is affecting me. I think the people who really know me know that I'm naturally a confounded person, but I don't think they're realising how dizzied up I am this time. I can't pay attention to save my life.

I'm really wondering what uni is doing to me. It is such a new feeling to socialise on weekdays. I really never thought I'd have the problem of trying to balance my social life and education--when have I ever been a social sort of person? I actually find myself slacking off now when it comes to studying. You would think that's a good thing because I've always been such an uptight person, but when you think I literally almost killed myself to get where I am, to get to uni...well, evidently, it's not a good thing.