The "Real World"

Here's my issue. I know school is important and I need to graduate and get a degree because how can I get a job without a degree and then how can I have a lifelong career that pays for my kids college and what not? 

(Run on sentences are my favorite) 

I know all of that. And I value the education that I'm getting. It's important and not everyone has the same opportunities as I do. I consider myself lucky to have the options that I do. 

However, I am a firm believer in school not being for everyone. I'll use myself as an example. I get good grades, I study, I'd say I'm a decent student. But I hate the structure of a classroom setting. It makes me anxious and paranoid and, frankly, very bored. You could be a straight A, 4.3 GPA, all around awesome student and school not be for you. 

It's not giving up. It's realizing that this isn't something you should be doing. There's a stigma in the United States, where if you don't go to college you're a failure and you were just a bad student in high school. Well, I'm here to tell you that I graduated from high school with a 3.4 GPA and I hate college. I absolutely hate it. 

I hate the structure, I hate the professors treating their students like children, I hate the dorms, I hate that students HAVE to have a major (I'll explain later), and I hate that a student can't take classes outside of their major without permission from faculty. 

There's more, but I figure you probably don't care about my excuses. 

I know getting an education is important, and I'm glad it is. But I wish it wasn't NECESSARY. There are students everywhere (i.e. Me) who struggle with sitting in a classroom all day and struggle with the construction of school. 

I find school tedious and boring, to be quite honest. It's not for everyone and I wish the "real world" would accept that. Just because someone didn't go to college doesn't mean they aren't smart or willing to learn for a job. A degree shouldn't equal worth, but, for some reason, it does. 

Let's say you're a student who doesn't mind school, but just don't want to waste time in a classroom when you could be doing something else. These are the best years of my life. Between the ages of 18 and 30, I could be doing so many things of value. 

I could be traveling to 3rd world countries and volunteering, I could be visiting places like Greece and Turkey and studying the culture, I could be attending music festivals with people from all around the world and learning their languages, I could be doing anything (assuming money isn't an issue) but instead, I'm in school. 

There are some things you just can't learn in a classroom and, if you ask me, there are a lot of things in the classroom I don't NEED to learn. 

Real world experience comes from experiencing the real world, right? 

I'm an English major at Towson University. Yet, according to Towson, I am required to take a math class, two science classes, a seminar that we do not get to pick, a foreign language, economics, and the list goes on and on. Yeah, these classes could be interesting and they're important to know. But I don't really see how spending 5 semesters getting my Gen. Eds finished is a good use of my time. Instead of being in writing classes and learning about literature around the world, I'm in a biology lab doing something that has nothing to do with what I am interested in. 

Maybe this is me just being ignorant, but so be it. I'm entitled to my opinion. 

I don't know why majors are a requirement either. People say college isn't job training, that it's there for us to get experience. So why do schools force us to pick the field in which we'd like to go and learn nothing else? What if I'm an English major and I want to take an acting class? I can't because it's not part of my major. 

Why can't I just take classes that interest me and learn as much as I can in the four years that have been allotted for me to do so?

I could be eating cheese and drinking wine in France, but instead I'm struggling to pass a history course. I could be seeing Les Miserables at the West End in London, but instead I'm state side eating dining hall food that makes me sick. 

Why is it social norm that we go to college during this time in our lives? Why isn't it acceptable for me to take a couple of years off after high school to explore the world and experience as much as I can? Because the way I see it, I won't have time after college. I spend four years of my life in classrooms, taking tests, and learning from a textbook only to be thrown out into the "real world" with a degree and no career (unless I'm very very lucky). If I do get a job - a good job - after graduation, I won't have the time or energy to experience all that I'd like to. That doesn't seem fair. 

All I want to do is go cliff diving in South America and go back to Nova Scotia and take pictures of everything I see. I won't get that opportunity after I graduate. So why was I also not allowed that opportunity before I went to college?

I said it before, I'm grateful for the options that I have because there are some places where school for little kids isn't even an option. 

But seeing as I have all of these opportunities, why did society say it wasn't acceptable for me to take advantage of them? 

Thought Process

I used to write stories to get away from the world and become someone else. I used to channel myself through my characters and stop being ME for a little while. It was my safe haven. It was how I could stand back and take a break for a little while.

Now though, it just feels like a chore. There is no longer an escape when I write. I miss it.

Now when I write, I feel like I'm not writing for me. I'm not writing for me anymore. Those characters aren't me, they're a product of what I think everyone else wants. I wanted to turn this into a career that I loved and I've barely started and I'm already resenting it.

I was rereading some of my older stuff today and god it was pretty awful. But it was real. It was my train of thought, it was how I was feeling, it was how I was escaping. I miss that.

Ever since I decided that I would go into publishing after I graduate, I've sort of hit a wall. I don't WANT to write anymore and I absolutely hate that.

This was something I loved. This was something that helped me feel better. I want to get back to that place but I'm afraid that I've lost it forever.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember. Since I was a little kid I was making up stories and in elementary school we would have free write and I'd write all of them down. The first story that I ever wrote that someone read, however, was in seventh grade for Mrs. Colgan's LA class. She had us take nursery rhymes and rewrite them with a different ending and make it a story rather than a poem.

I chose Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

She loved it.

She still uses it as an example in her classes today.

Right then and there was when I decided I was going to do this. I was going to write. I was good at it. People liked it. I made people FEEL something, and I was only twelve years old. What could my potential be in five, ten, fifteen years? I couldn't even imagine.

Well here we are at that first milestone. It's been just over five years and I haven't written anything new or good since last April (Gregory's Books). Don't get me wrong, I really am trying. I promise I am. I just keep getting discouraged.

My friend and I were discussing this the other day over lunch. She told me I couldn't get discouraged because I still have 50+ years of a career ahead of me. Just because I'm not finishing anything right now doesn't mean I won't in the future.

But what I was thinking to myself was that if I can't finish anything now, what makes anyone think I WILL finish anything in the future?

It's almost like ever since I decided a different career path, I've subconsciously given up on writing completely.

I miss the person I was before I decided this is what I wanted to do with my life. Where did that girl go? Why doesn't the girl I am now feel motivated to write anything?

I can hardly get myself to write opinion essays anymore. It's pitiful. It's like every creative bit of my body has been sucked out of me and I can't do it anymore.

Is this what happens when you grow up? Your imagination goes away with the kid you were? Because that would suck.

I'm in a class this semester called The Elements of Fiction and we have to create character sketches and most of the assignments are creative writing based. At first I was excited but now I'm just terrified. What if my stuff sucks? What if I'm not good at this anymore? What if I've run my course and getting published in a couple of school literary magazines is as far as I'm going to get?

I'm just discouraged and unmotivated and rereading my older stuff made me think about all this a little deeper.

The Problem With Me

Sometimes I have to beat up on myself a little bit to get back on track.

A lot has been going on since we last corresponded. For one, I was starting to write a novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in which one writes an entirely new novel (or approximately 50,000 words) over the course of the 30 days of November. After about 18,000 words in just over a week, the novel disappeared.

I was, and still am, devastated. It was 18,000 words on the love of my life, the one person that I could see myself actually writing 50,000 words about. My history with Steven is so extravagant that I decided to spend my month writing about it. I still can't believe I lost it.

But that's not my problem.

Steven and I have been together for two wonderful months now. I love him more than I ever thought I could love another human being. He's kind and makes me laugh and I get to see him tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited.

But that's not my problem.

The Freshmen 15 is a very very real thing. I feel like all I ever do is eat. Mostly because it's always there and available, but also because it's a social thing that everyone seems to do. Getting food together is like a way to establish a friendship or whatever. 90% of Julia's and my excursions are getting food.

But even THAT isn't my problem.

My problem is that I can't even put into words what my problem is.

I complain all the time, but I justify it by knowing that that is what I'm doing, so it's alright. I know I'm being annoying, so that makes it okay.

Alright, so it doesn't make it okay but that's what's happening in my head. All kinds of stupid stuff is happening in my head.

I'm "that girl." I'm the jealous girlfriend, I'm the jealous ex girlfriend, I'm the clingy girlfriend, I'm "that girl." I hate that I'm "that girl." I don't want to be "that girl" but I don't know how to stop being her.

I have two papers to write (one due on the 24th and the other due on the 8th) and I've made little to no progress on either. I keep getting so stressed out and scared that I'm going to fail everything that I just shut down and get absolutely nothing done.

College is hard. And it's just going to get worse. I'm an English major for crying out loud, the next four years are just going to be more papers.

I'm just an 18 year old hypochondriac who has a real problem with going out in public.

I should write more. I just don't know what to write about.

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Thoughts On Sexuality

(I'm just going to warn you now that this is going to be a sort of rant/train of thought post with a lot of tangents. It may not make a whole lot of sense but bear with me. Bear? Bare? Who knows.)

"Transgender residents [of Maryland] will have protection against discrimination on matters relating to housing, employment, credit and use of public accommodations. The law defines gender identity as the gender-related identity, appearance, expression, or behavior of a person, regardless of the person's assigned sex at birth."

This is a quote from nbcwashington.com that I read this morning. In layman's terms, people can no longer be discriminated against due to the gender with which they identify.

This is a really big step, Maryland. Go you.

I just wanted to point out that this is a massive step in the right direction. Discrimination because of sexuality or identity is, well, for lack of a better term, stupid. You can't tell someone how they should feel just because it's what you feel.

When you tell someone they can't do something just because of who they love or what gender they might pursue, you're telling someone that they can't be THEM. How would you like it if someone came up to you and said "Oh, you're straight? Sorry, you can't get married because I don't like the way you kiss the opposite sex." Like that's equally as outrageous as telling a woman she can't marry another woman, right?

(I really hate when I think of something to say but don't write it down soon enough and it leaves my brain completely. I had a really good point to make and now I can't think of what it was.)

There's a certain stigma that goes along with certain sexualities, like bisexuality and pansexuality. There's this negative connotation that goes with it, like that people who are Bi or Pan are just sluts. I hate that so very much because it's almost forcing people who identify with that sexuality back in the closet.

Speaking as someone who is a massive supporter of the LGBT community, I'd like to define pansexuality in my own words. In my eyes, someone who identifies as Pan is someone who doesn't see a person as a gender. This is a person who sees people as people. And I think that's beautiful. Why can't we all do that? Why can't we just stop seeing people as man or woman and start seeing people as PEOPLE?

There are so many different sexualities that people are so ignorant of. Some of them don't even cover who you love! There's transgender and gender-fluid and androgynous and so many others and I'm so FLIPPING happy that my state has decided to FINALLY pass laws against the discrimination of people who are part of this community.

Just because you may identify with the gender with which you were born doesn't mean everyone does. And the fact that Maryland is finally taking this into account is amazing to me.

Now if only it could be put into motion EVERYWHERE, that'd be fantastic. Oh, and gay marriage. Like, let's jump on that.

I'm so proud to be able to say that my state passed a law that criminalizes discrimination against identity. I never thought I'd see the day, honestly.

I'm sorry if this is a little random but sometimes that's the best way to get my thoughts out there. I hope it is at least coherent. Thank you for taking the time to read what I think.

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To The Prichards

To the Prichard Family,

     This is an application to date and eventually marry your Steven. I know what you're thinking. “They're too young, they don't know what they want,” but I know that I want Steven forever. I've known this for a while and I promise you that I will be an excellent addition to your family.

     Steven is a wonderful man and I've loved him for as long as I've known him. He was my first kiss and really the first boy I ever had heavy feelings for. If you were to ask us about how we met, however, I have to honestly say that I don't remember. He's just always been there. I don't remember our first encounter, but I can tell you we performed in Once Upon A Mattress together and we were in the same creative writing class.

     The thing about Steven that makes him stand out from the other people I've dated is that I know for a fact that he loves me just as much as I love him. Every chance he gets, he makes a point of telling me he loves me and how beautiful I am. That's something I've never had before and he always makes me feel really good about myself.

     Yeah, he teases me and makes fun of me, but it's how he shows me he loves me. And it's okay because I love him too. Like, for real, he's really mean to me but I don't care because I'm crazy about him.

     I've never felt this way about anyone ever. It's always been Steven and it always will be.

To soften the blow, I've decided to give you a list of my positive attributes so that you will welcome me and know that I'm not completely crazy.

1. I go to Towson University, where I'm studying to be an English major. What am I going to do with an English BA, you ask? I have no idea.
2. I like to write short stories and I've been working on a novel since before I even met Steven (so, like, 5+ years?). So that's probably what I'll do with that English degree.
3. I have green eyes. Green eyes are the rarest color of eyes and I think that makes me pretty unique. And, Steven likes them, so that's a plus.
4. I make my bed every day, and my mom doesn't even have to tell me to do so.
5. One of my favorite things to do is read, so I've got a pretty wide and pretentious vocabulary. I wasn't sure if that was considered a good thing or a bad thing, so I figured I'd throw it in just in case.
6. I like to pretend I can sing, and I do it often. So music will always fill the space if I have anything to do about it.
7. Sleeping is one of my favorite things to do. That may make it seem like I'm lazy, but sleeping is necessary for your body to function every day. So really, I'm just being health conscious.

     I'll stop there, mostly because I can't really think of anything else. 7 is a pretty solid number, I think.

     But I promise to love Steven forever until the end of time. I truly believe that there's one person for everyone and Steven is my soul mate. So, if you could, please, accept this application for dating Steven. I love him so much my heart hurts.

     I fell for him hard and I fell for him fast. And that was 3 years ago. Somehow I'm still mad for him after all this time and all that we've been through. And we've been through a lot. But I love him with every fiber of my being, and I promise to continue to do so for as long as I'm alive.

Thank you,

    Megan Clark

Stress.

Disclaimer: This is going to be a lot of "First World Problem" complaining. Please don't make me hate myself even more, I'm really just complaining for the sake of ranting. 

Thank you.

OKAY.

It is slowly dawning on me that I'm about to leave for college. I know I'm not going very far, about forty minutes by car, but I'm still leaving home. I'm leaving the nest. My warm little nest where my parents and save me from everything. 

It's also occurring to me that I am quite possibly the laziest person I've ever met in the universe. I hate working, yet I'm completely broke. 

Let me rephrase this. I hate working on the weekends. Don't get me wrong, the pay is great when I work those 6-7 hour shifts (again, I know that's not as awful as it could be but still). I just hate working. But I need to work. Like NEED to. My car payment is $150 a month. I pay around $40 a month for gas (simply because my tank is only 10 gallons and I don't drive that often). Now apparently to keep my car in a garage in Towson, I'm looking at another $40 a month to park. So, I need to work.

Plus I love to buy things. Spending money is one of my favorite pastimes. Although I pride myself in being extremely frugal, I have very little self control when it comes to pretty sparkly things in a store. 

I keep having miniature panic attacks every few hours when I think about packing up my room too hard. I pretty much cry myself to sleep every night. 

Although that might also be due to the fact that my boyfriend is currently in South Korea, so...

Every time I think about having to go to work, I want to just call in sick. I'm not making excuses for myself, I honestly do have social anxiety. And I love love love the people that I work with. I just don't like working. It's not hard, it just stresses me out and I have no idea why. 

I shouldn't be complaining because my job isn't hard and I don't work very long hours each day. I honestly just don't like working part time jobs like this. I'm tired of it. I want to start my life and get a real full time job at a publishing firm or something like that. 

But I guess I'd find someway to complain about that if it happened, too. So I guess I'm at an impasse.

I've never been more stressed out and I'm not even in school right now. 

I just got my student ID card for Towson. I keep going from being super excited to being literally terrified and on the verge of tears. 

Sigh.

Rant over. Until next time.

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I Have A Problem.

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, right? Well, I think I have a problem.

Yes, I bite my nails and I fuss over my hair and I can't manage to keep my room clean for more than a week, but I'm talking about something much worse than that.

It has recently been brought to my attention that I can purchase stuff online.

I know.

I only very recently (like within the last two months) got my first debit card and within the last week I have spent almost $200 on just clothes. So there goes my last four paychecks...or, rather, all of my past paychecks.

I don't make a lot of money.

It's not like I need these items. I don't. I have more clothes than I need right now. But they're all so pretty and colorful and I just can't help myself.

I do have self control, I swear. Somewhere deep down I have the ability to stop. I just don't really want to.

I love the independence of it, I think. I like that I don't have to ask my mom if I can buy something because it's MY money and MY card and I can do whatever I want to do with it. Within reason.

When I was in my younger teen years, I used to scavenger through clothing brand websites such as H&M or Charlotte Russe and just look at the clothes. Now when I do this, I can actually buy the things that I like.

Tonight I bought a jacket and a shirt and a set of rings from Forever 21. I've never been in a Forever 21, I've never purchased anything from Forever 21, but I bought $54 worth of stuff from their franchise. They're very versatile pieces, so they won't go to waste, I promise. They're pieces that I've been looking for for a while now and have been wanting for a very long while now.

Here's where I discovered I had a problem: I only bought the rings (which were 3 for $1.80) so that I could get the free shipping for an order of $50+. My order was literally $49.80. What else was I supposed to do?! I wasn't going to pay $8+ for shipping for two tops! So I bought rings - and I do love rings - to put me over just so I could get the deal.

My previous online purchase was merch from Wicked because I didn't get the chance to buy any of it while I was actually in New York (a post about that excursion is coming soon, so stay tuned). I bought two shirts from the show itself and it was quite pricey, but totally worth it because Friday the package should arrive and I will have beautifully tragic (hehe) shirts to commemorate the trip.

I have, like, no patience. I ordered my Wicked stuff last Wednesday and it still hasn't come in and it's driving me CRAZY.

Someone come take my cards away from me. Or my internet.

Actually, scratch that. I need my internet.

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Here's What I Know

I'm 18 years old. I've had 18 years to learn a lot of things.

I know the quadratic formula. I also know which letters are vowels and which ones are consonants. I know how to play "Ode to Joy" on the piano and I know how to sing "On My Own" from Les Mis almost perfectly. Well, at least I think so.

I know what I want to be when I grow up, I know who I have feelings for, I know that I'm going to cut my hair and donate it to Locks Of Love at the end of summer.

I also know that people leave. They stop caring, no matter how many times they tell you they'll love you forever. People leave. Maybe that's just me, or maybe that's just the people I happen to fall for. But regardless, they leave. They stop caring. They avoid you. And you end up back where you started: as strangers.

I know I can write a short story in record time (whether or not its decent literature is subjective). I know that I ended my senior year with a cumulative 3.38 GPA and I know that I'm very excited to attend Towson in the fall.

I know that I've been in love twice. I know that each time it ended... poorly. I also know that I will always love them. I know that being in love is one of the best feelings in the world because it feels like you're on a cloud and the only person in the whole world is them. They're what holds you up and vice versa. But it hurts. That's why it's called falling.

I know what panic attacks feel like. I know that it feels like I'm drowning and it feels like the air in the room has evaporated into nothing. I know that when someone gets them as frequently as I do, it can take a toll.

I know that Glee is one of the worst television programs ever. I also know that I'm obsessed with it. Yes, I'm a closet Gleek.

I know some conversational German along with a lot of the grammatical stuff.

I know that someday I'm going to be a performer. The best times of my life so far were spent on stage and I plan to spend the rest of my life on one.

I know that things will get better because they did. Junior year was hell and when senior year came along, it became better. Things just got brighter. And yeah, things still suck a little bit. But each day it gets brighter. The sun comes up and the moon comes up and each one is just as bright as the one before it. Each day is new and maybe not every day will be light. But even on your darkest day, you have to remember that tomorrow will be better.

I may not know how to change a tire, or how to sew a sweater. And I may not know how to solve differential equations (or anything about Calculus at ALL). But here's what I do know. People may leave, but someone or something new always comes along to fix that hole that the previous person left on you.

I hope this wasn't too corny. Or depressing.

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Public Transport and Senior Week

Being in Ocean City for the 2014 round of Senior Week, I’ve learned a few things. Even though this is only my third day here, well, I’ve noticed some things.

For example, sleeping in the small double bed with Madison sort of sucks. She kicks quite a bit and punches in her sleep. This morning I woke up to my nose right up to the wall because she had pushed me all the way over that way. I don’t know how many more nights I can take of that, because I have to last at least 5 more.

I’ve learned that we have no privacy in our little condo. There’s one master bedroom (with a master bathroom), a second room with two double beds, and a living area (with another full bathroom). There’s a kitchen, a breakfast bar, a table/dining area, and a bunch of couches (although the one is a sofa bed, which Dylaney has pulled out to sleep on). We also have a balcony that overlooks the ocean and beach and it’s so lovely to watch the sun go down. I’ve also heard from Lane that it’s equally as lovely coming up, but I’m not waking up at 5 am on vacation to see it. 

The walls are very thin in the entire complex, so we can vaguely hear everyone around us and I’m sure they can hear us. Quick sorry to our neighbors who had to listen to us screaming over UNO last night: It got pretty rowdy and we were playing dirty and I personally apologize on behalf of all of us for the colorful language that ensued.

Yesterday (Sunday) we took the bus for the first time to get down to the boardwalk to get these bracelets that would let us ride the bus for free for the rest of the week. It really is a small world, because we met two guys that new people we went to school with. That’s always a funny thing to run into. 

We met up with friends on the boardwalk and walked for a few hours. Our feet hurt so bad by the end of that because none of us brought sensible walking shoes. Honestly, flip flops would have been more comfortable than my converse. And seeing how I have the worst blisters ever, I plan on wearing flip flops for the rest of the week. 

People are really chill down here. That in mind, a lot of them are probably high or drunk, but hey, I'm not judging. We've run into a lot of seniors, although not many from our school. The other night on the beach we ran into a few kids from our school. They caught a stingray on a fishing line. It was kind of hilarious, but I don't do oceanic creatures, so Brittany and I stood waaaaaay back and just observed while everyone was trying to get the hook back. 

People on the bus have been really cool too. Even the adults. They give us advice and directions and it's just really making me regain a sense of faith in humanity.

I've decided I like public transport. We were totally on a party bus last night. These kids were singing and clapping and it was just fun. 

More to come later in the week.

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"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."

Yesterday was the last day of my childhood. I graduated from high school with my class of 300-something kids and started a new chapter in my life. Let me tell you, I'm terrified. 

It still doesn't even feel real. We stood in that back gym for two hours waiting for 1:30 to come so that we could just walk across that stage and receive that diploma that we'd been dreaming about for the last four years. 

Well, I have that diploma, I have pictures, I have a cap and gown to prove it. But I still feel like that scared little girl on the first day of freshman year. Even more so, now that I actually have to face reality. 

I'm moving out in less than 3 months to a place where I know no one. I'm going to be living with a stranger and attending a school where everything is double the pace as it was in high school. And I thought my College Prep Statistics class was hard. Imagine what College LEVEL Stats will be like. 

Graduation was, in a word, long. The speeches, luckily, were all entertaining, even the councilmen's. It kept us awake. Too bad is was about ninety degrees in the arena. 

Walking across that stage after hearing my name was very weird. I don't even remember her saying my name, I just remember walking and shaking someone's hand and then it was done. I was officially a high school graduate. Even after we moved our tassels over from the right to the left it didn't feel real. 

After graduation we had a party. My class got to go on a little cruise around the inner harbor as one last hurrah to high school. 

It was a lot of fun actually. More fun than I thought it would be. There was a buffet and dancing and games and I really enjoyed getting to spend time with my friends. 

What's depressing is that the DJ on the boat was better than our DJ for prom. 

I slept until 10:30 today and it's 2:30 now and it STILL doesn't feel real. Maybe it'll feel real when my Towson schedule comes. Or maybe when my bedding arrives. Or maybe it won't feel real until August 23 when I have to move into the dorms with that stranger. 

I'm 18 years old. I'm a high school graduate, and I'm tired as all hell. 

I'm not even close to being ready for the real world, but here I come. 

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