With the first week of my third year of college behind me, there is more that I could talk about than I would typically like. Between waking up Monday morning with a cold, an in your face professor with a hostile political agenda, and getting the time for my Friday classed mixed up so that I walked in an hour and twenty minutes into the lecture, things got off to a pretty rough start. Each morning I woke up with some new mutation of a cold and felt less and less like actually showing up to my classes with each progressing day, but I'm a stubborn and persistent fellow so I forced myself and my fellow classmates to put up with and endure my sniffles all the way through the week.
Thankfully, I feel essentially recovered from the obligatory beginning of the semester illness, and Labor Day is extending my weekend long enough for me to get stuff done, get my feet back on the ground, and come back to week two with a vengeance.
So, instead of spending an entire post listing off my beginning of the semester woes, I'm going to focus on a peculiar phenomenon I've been experiencing since Monday morning. I can't recall whether or not I mentioned this in my last post or not, but I have a rather abnormal class schedule this semester compared to the schedules of days gone by. In the past, all of my schooldays started with a class at 10:00 am and ended before 5:30 in the evening. I did this on purpose because I don't like evening classes, don't like super early classes, and really don't like online classes. Unfortunately, going hand in hand with entering into the upper level classes, my choices as far as days and times for the subjects I wanted to take were fairly limited, and as a result, my first class of the week doesn't start until 5:30 PM on Monday. Consequently, the first day of school was primarily taken up with me not actually being in class and I had plenty of time to mull over this strange realization that dawned on me as I dove into the beginning of my fifth collegiate semester.
Even though I didn't have class till 5:30, I got to campus at 9:00 Monday morning so I could print out syllabi and then assist in manning the Honors Program table at my university's welcome week event. As I sat in my folding chair on the mall of my university campus and watched student walk by, I was struck by two conflicting thoughts. 1) It felt like was returning home, and 2) I felt totally out of place and like the coming to campus wasn't the same anymore. The first thought caused me to realize that my school , despite all my frustrations with it and how little I actually want to be there some days, has actually become a pretty significant part of my current life. After four semesters and quite a few 12+ hour days on campus, I suppose it isn't entirely surprising that a part of me has grown attached to the place, but I have also developed some good friendships and met some rather enjoyable companions over the last two years. Running into many of these people over the course of my first day back felt very refreshing and helped me to realize just how much my life has changed and how much I've developed in so many ways since beginning my adventures in higher education. Jumping back into the swing of things felt almost seamless that first day in many ways, and I could hardly believe that I hadn't been on the campus more than a handful of times since the end of June.
However, at the same time, I could help feeling like some things had definitely changed. For one thing, the fact that I am a junior and more than halfway through my undergraduate degree hit me in full force for the first time. After this semester, assuming I pass all my classes, I will have only thirteen subjects and thirty-seven credit hours left standing between me and my degree. It isn't even accurate to call this my junior year, because I'll be a senior, God willing, come December. Realizing that I was farther along than fifty percent plus of the student body milling to and fro around me was no small thing for my head to grapple with, and it set all sorts of fireworks off in my head. Being halfway done means that I need to actually start looking at internships and graduate school with increased fervor and focus. It means I need to actually start acting like an adult and begin getting things mapped out lest I run full speed into graduation and the future without a satisfactory contingency plan.
All in all, something felt off. I'm not sure if it was my new upperclassman standing, the fact that I am now taking classes all centered around my major, a schedule with two online classes and none in the mornings Monday and Wednesday, the pesky cold that plagued me all week, some other unidentified variable, or some combination of the above, but I passed through the last several days in a dazed stupor at times. Together, all of these things led me to a single extremely obvious but extraordinary epiphany: I'm getting older.
Life is not, in fact, standing still, and while I am most certainly still a sprouting youngster, my twentieth birthday is coming up right around the corner and before too long I will be entering the grown up world for real. Not long ago, the idea of going to college, getting a driver's license, and turning eighteen were all awe inspiring concepts that marked my crossing the threshold of child to adult. Now all three seem terribly mundane, uninteresting, and things of the past. Instead, completed degrees, graduate school, jobs and internships, a living space of my own, and, God willing, a wife and family are all milestones that are not only fast approaching but will probably also seem incredibly normal and routine before too long.
The fact is that adulthood and the real world are hot on my heels, and while I like to think that I have not been idle or negligent in preparing for their arrival, it is time that I actually start thinking in concrete terms and begin making plans to actually handle them when they get here. Applying for jobs and looking into purchasing living quarters will not remain hypothetical situations to be examined in the future for long. Life's rolling forward and I'm getting older.
As I have told my friends and peers many times before, I don't actually consider myself an adult yet. Sure, I am eighteen, I vote, I attend college, have a part time job, can drive myself to and fro, manage my own schedule, and am responsible for getting myself up int he morning and putting myself to bed at night, but I honestly don't feel like any of these things are really signs or indicators that I have shaken off the title of child and grown into the realm of "grown ups." I still live with my parents, they pay for almost all of my food, my dad still cover's my car insurance, and I do not make enough money that I could fend for myself if my parents chose to kick me out. Thankfully, I have been blessed with absolutely amazing parental units who have graciously allowed me to save quite a bit of money by inhabiting their basement and consuming their food while I tackle this thing commonly referred to as college, but as long as I take advantage of their generosity and remain dependent on their finances, their home, and their edible products, I am not entirely comfortable calling myself an adult.
My reluctance in calling myself a fully fledged grown up extends beyond the fact that I am not self sufficient at this time. As I read the news, look at the parents and adults around me who have to deal with the trials and tribulations of world, and as I sit and think about all of the demands upon my time and attention that will come hand in hand moving out, getting a career, and starting a family, I cannot help but feel woefully unprepared for the responsibilities that will be laid upon my shoulders. Not because I feel like my parents, friends, and society have failed to train me and give me the resources necessary to take on life, but because I feel like I have yet to fully grasp that mysterious beast known as maturity by the horns and embrace the necessary mindset in becoming a real adult.
However, as I wrestle with these thoughts of inadequacy and the impending demands of the real world, I have found myself panicking far less than I would have previously predicted; this whole being adult thing is actually what I have been trying to work towards ever since I figured out that I could graduate high school in three years instead of four. All my efforts, not just academically, but in finding campus jobs, in learning how to drive, and in getting involve in school activities have been focused on reaching the point where I can confidently call myself a grown and meet the world head on.
I told a friend earlier this week when discussing a particularly frustrating professor that I have this semester: "I've got too many things to do and too many places to go to let a professor stop me." Likewise, at this point, the issues and responsibilities that will come with graduating, moving out, and coming into my own are part of the package deal and even though they often seem overwhelming and positively crippling, they are part of life. I will handle them, one way or another, because I have to. After all, I've got bigger fish to fry.
All of this is not to meant to be an attempt to brag or show of pompous self confidence, but rather a recognition of the fact that I am coming to terms with the fact that the up and down roller coaster of life is no longer a distant image on the horizon and that I am genuinely eager to start tackling it. More than likely, I will trip and fall on myself numerous times along the way. Honestly, that seems pretty inevitable, but that's all part of the process.
I'm growing older whether I like it or not so I might as well choose to like it, make the most of it, and be as prepared for it as possible.
Looking forward, I have three regular semesters counting this one before I get my undergraduate degree in Accounting. After that I plan on nabbing and internship before coming back to school for a graduate degree also in Accounting. Between now and then, a lot of stuff is going to happen, and a lot of it is going to be entirely out of my control, but by the time I graduate with a Masters I plan on being able to finally call myself an adult.
After all, you only live once, and while being a kid forever might sound awesome, ain't nobody got time fo' dat.
Pax
(Note: I should write these things before midnight... not after)
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