Istanbul - Munich

That fleeting moment of separated unity followed seconds after by separation was motivating.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about seeing the crowd of people waving at me as I was looking back, past passport control into the airport. I felt so lucky to have my Anne, my Baba, my older sister, my brother-in-law and my driver who is more like family than anything else say goodbye to me. Before I left them for passport control I looked at them, they were standing in a semi-circle, and it was just a great feeling.

Even though I will miss them in time, I feel like the blurry wave of crowded hands looking back at me was just nice. I felt supported, but also relieved that I was now past passport control, and that there was now officially an international border between those I love the most and myself. This shouldn’t be mistaken for my desire to ‘get rid’ of them, not at all.

If I were to reduce what I felt to the core, I guess I would say something along the lines of: I felt strong and independent, seeing the waving hands in behind passport control, knowing that I was supported but that a flight and my second semester of my freshman year was waiting for my arrival. I felt like I had a sense of purpose; I was alone and I had to handle and do my own thing. It’s definitely nice being back home and having my Anne, my maid and everybody support me in so many of the things that I do. But it feels even better to know that I can do my own shit, I can do my own laundry, I can go to classes, and that I had to feed myself, and just take care of myself.

I guess I hadn’t realized that I had missed the feeling of independence and self-sufficiency.

I just felt independent and strong and that I was just for of by myself, doing my own thing, going at my own pace, and just going to college. I just need to really definitely embrace college this semester; I need to go to parties (hah – like I hadn’t gone enough) stop talking about how miserable I am, because let’s face it – a huge part of it is motivated by my friends who seem genuinely miserable.

My high school friends are very nice, my high school life is very comforting, but I have no real desire to go back and live it all over again, definitely not with the same circumstances, definitely not as a student.

I want to go back to Medford, and go back to my school. I miss the feeling of having freezing hands, of the surprise rain visits that I had during the fall of my freshman year. I don’t know what I keep saying my freshman year, I mean it still is 2011 and I haven’t even begun second semester yet. I feel like I’m talking about it as if it’s something in the past.

So let’s do a little preparation, shall we? I am going to take five courses this semester, which will put me on a different schedule this semester. I also want to go to the gym at least four times a week, and I want to add some structure to my day. I want to make it a personal rule that except maybe on Saturday mornings, I should not wake up after 10:00 AM. I mean, it’s just ridiculous to sleep until 1PM every single fucking day, just outrageous.

I am taking a number of wonderful courses! I am taking Introduction to Philosophy, which I think will be such a great experience because philosophy is something that I’ve been so interested in, and now I finally have a small intimate class environment where I can do the readings, go to class and discuss them, and have a professor facilitate and complement my learning experience. I am also taking social psychology, which just by itself is an extremely interesting topic in addition to French Literature – which I enjoyed in high school and hope to try out in college.

I’m also taking Introduction to International Relations as well as Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory. So I feel like I have an interesting set of classes, but this semester I really need to keep on the ball. I have to be disciplined, organized and just a hard worker. I can’t have 7 meals a day at Dewick, and I can’t wake up at 1PM. I also can’t talk about every little small problem that I have with my therapist, I need to approach college like I approached high school.

The same circumstances are not present at my university that they were in high school. But that is why they are entirely different institutions, serving different purposes, in different countries on separate continents with an ocean between them. I need to just basically cut the crap – and GET GOING. I really want to work hard this semester and succeed academically. I want to leave my first semester as a learning experience and take on my new challenge.

As for my slightly less interesting classes; I need to find a reason and purpose to make macroeconomics more interesting to me. I have to make it personal, and work and find real life implications of the things that I am learning in class. I need to solidify what I learn in class within that day, so I can have a balanced and successful semester. Macroeconomics I just need to work at definitely learn what is taught in class. I feel like international economics was an interesting class, but it definitely didn’t have a lot of real life implication for me, and if it did, I just need to learn more.

In college the issue is this; if you are spending approximately $65-70,000 USD a year going to school, do you really not want to learn anything not just outside the classroom, but inside also? So take your studies with genuine interest, and honestly make the best out of it. You have a responsibility to yourself, your body, and your family and friends to make the best out of these four years. Life is what you make out of it and college is no exception. Stay on the ball and keep going.

So I feel like this post sort of diverged in a number of directions, and for the time being I want to give my self a break from writing, and just sort of sit, and think, I feel like thinking is a faster and less restricted way of thought then writing, or typing in this case. Maybe I’ll upon up a book and get into that, just very lightly.

Alrighty then, next stop: Munich.