If you've been outside recently, you've probably noticed that summer is here, and with it has come my incredible my four months away from school. Of course, if you're reading this, it means you're probably still at UW for spring term, in which case I want to thank you. Thank you for making me feel so much better about myself in comparison.
Have fun with projects, essays, midterms, bad profs, early morning classes and all-night study sessions, you losers. I get four months of total freedom from school during the nicest time of year (see: only time it isn't positively frigid). I could do anything. I could be a totally different person than I am for the other eight months of the year. I could get a new hobby. I could hit the gym. I could have a complete life makeover. You just have to be a student. Again. And it's not like you were enjoying it the first time.
Granted, the summer job I get has piled me with so many shifts that I'm not actually going to have much free time to do anything. And granted, it wouldn't really matter if I had loads of free time anyways, since a lot of my friends are gone for the summer, so I don't have that much to do.
And sure, I'm probably not going to do anything cool during the summer, because deep down I was just using school as an excuse for never trying anything, when really I just lack ambition. And I'll admit that the nice weather is probably going to be wasted on me since I'll spend most of my free time downstairs in my dark, depressing basement bedroom. And yes, sometimes I wish I were still regularly in Waterloo, because my hometown is totally boring and noticeably lacking in late-night grilled-cheese establishments.
And I guess I can't deny that some nights I wake up screaming, wondering if this constant feeling of floating aimlessness is what life will be like all the time after I graduate. Sometimes I wonder if I've been in school for so long that it defines me, and I lose meaning when I'm away from it. Sometimes I wonder if I'm even fit to be anything other than a student. What if the real reason I watch Vines of people being slapped with whipped cream for hours on end is to distract myself from the harsh realities of the universe? What if I am the face, and the universe the hand that will inevitably slap me with the whipped cream of despair when I least expect it? Why the hell would you even want to slap someone with whipped cream anyways? That would be delicious!
What if I've been so institutionalized by the education system that my mind isn't used to being left to think for itself for over a third of a year? I can feel my thoughts gradually slipping into dark, deep recesses that I fear I cannot escape from. Madness is slowly engulfing me, and I fear that I'm already too far gone to fight it off…
But at least I'm not in school! Suck it, nerds!
…Only a couple more months until September…
