Today is one of those days where I really don't like myself. I don't like that I'm 21 and living with my mother. I don't like that I'm working two half-assed jobs while attending a community college. I don't like that all of my high school friends are going to graduate college before me. I don't like that my little sister will either graduate before or at the same time as me. I don't like that I'm not getting the "college experience." And most of all I don't like that I don't like these things, because I'm really not that dissatisfied with my life. What I really don't like is that there is a timeline I feel obligated to follow. I don't like that I'm starting to feel old simply because I'm not doing everything in the right order. (Also, as a brief sidenote: I don't like that for the last year [if not more] I have never felt legitimately mentally challenged by a peer. Obviously there are people who know more things than I do, but learning something is very different [and far inferior to] being challenged by something.)
I was watching the television show Community the other day, which chronicles the existence of a Spanish study group at a community college. Wonderfully often the characters run up against certain experiences that are unique to community colleges. This week a group of high school students was featured as a collection of overly intelligent, snobbish jerks who follow our beloved study group around, taunting them for being at a community college, because, obviously, unless you are a high school student proving your super-intelligence by attending a college whilst being in high school, community colleges represent stupidity or failure of some kind.
10-1 says most high school students (people) believe this. I say this for several reasons:
1. Community colleges are notorious for being for:
a. Those who cannot afford a 4-year school. (Which shouldn't mean anything, but it implies a lack of money, and any deficiency, even if it is as basal a thing as money, can be grounds for viewing an individual as less-than. Stupid? Yes. True, irregardless? Yup.)
b. Those who slacked off in high school and are now making up for it by using a community college to up their gpa.
c. Those who ran into some kind of life issue that prohibits them from taking the usual route. Dropouts, the kids that got pregnant, the ones who decided to do life before they did school or maybe it was as simple as *insert tragic/mundanely common circumstance here*. The reality is that they couldn't do what everyone else did, so they're following plan b (c, d, e, f, g...etc.)
2. When I was in high school and doing PSEO (Post-secondary education option, ie college in high school) I was pretty well convinced that I was more intelligent than my fellow students. (Hey, anecdotal evidence counts for something. 99% of life experience can be summed up anecdotally, so I refuse to not take it into account.)
3. Largely because of point 2 (which stands despite my encouragement and support of friends who attended community colleges before me) I would never have planned to attend one outside of a PSEO program. My decision to go to this school was literally of the split second variety. I had no other plan, so I emailed the school late one night and asked if they'd let me sign up for classes, even though they had started the previous week. They did and badda-bing, badda-boom, here I am. (The very observant will notice that this doesn't really support my point, meaning that it is anecdotal evidence minus the evidence. Mwahaha. It's my blog, I'll do what I want.)
4. It's pretty obvious that the current high school students attending my community college believe in the inferiority of community college students. They would never seriously say as much, but a large group of them implied as much the other day, and honestly, as points 2 and 3 prove, I can't really blame them because I've felt the same way.
5. It's largely true. Most of my classes are made up of students with children, stay at home moms who are finally trying to do something for themselves, international students who had to start somewhere, slackers, the grossly unintelligent, people with family issues who need/want to stay close to home, and those who try really hard to keep their heads down because they think they are better than anyone else, a fact which makes them more ashamed than it does proud. Some people fall into several of these categories.
Now, for the record, I've loved my time at my community college. I've had several teachers here who are better (more caring, intelligent, well-spoken, better prepared, etc.) than teachers at my 4-year schools. I have met some really amazing (charismatic, witty, unique, fun) peers during my time here. I've been involved in an, although small, really solid theater program. I have participated in several other student organizations that are well put-together and composed of wonderfully passionate students and teachers. And despite all of this, social stigma or something similar dictates that a little ember of shame about my time at a community college remains niggling inside of me.
The problem is that my current dissatisfaction with myself has very little to do with myself and everything to do with other people. The way I am living my life does not conform to the standards that our world suggests is the "right way" of doing things and the thought of that actually thrills me a little bit, because it's trendy to be different these days. Conformity by virtue of uniqueness, yo.
It's just so easy to tell a person that they are either bound to be a failure or already are because they aren't doing life the "right" way. I know that I shouldn't take offense to this because of its unoriginality and because of our supposed need, as people, to find our importance in ourselves instead of in others, but... I'm human. It sucks when people make untrue assumptions about me because of where my life and my respective decisions have put me. It sucks that I'm too much of a pansy to put them in their place with anything more creative or true than "well...what have you done with YOUR life that you're excited about?"
Their life paths are no less legitimate than mine just because they are following the world's suggestion as to how to do life right, either. If they're happy, they're happy. Ad hominem aside, I just want for people to see me as I am.
Let me be confused without adding to my confusion. I guess that's what I'm asking. I am nowhere near where I expected to be in this 5th month of 2010. I was going to follow the 4-year plan, double majoring in philosophy and film at a four year school on the east coast. I was going to be your typical, liberal arts student with a passion for the world and a trendy detachment from herself that she would never recognize as such. I got accepted to every school I applied to. I picked one, I went there, I started down the road to my potential future life... Shit happened and I'm not close to that person or path anymore.
Let's make a deal:
Don't illegitimize my hurt and its repercussions just because it doesn't look like your life plan and I won't bash you for being a lemming.
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