Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Dear Everyone on My Campus

Live your lives, guys.  I’m not going to judge.  

That being said, could you please have some courtesy for those of us who a) hate the smell of weed and b) are getting over a bad cough and c) have enough of a sensitivity to the smell of weed to suffer a coughing fit under the best circumstances.  That means please do not make the dorm reek of weed.  

On a related note, if you hire someone as a tutor and you leave ‘just to grab food real quick,’ you better at least send that person a message if you decide to fuck off and get high so that you don’t leave them waiting for an hour and a half.

words-writ-in-starlight:

I’m taking that creative writing class and I just.  Okay.  Guys.  Explain me a thing.  WHY have I read two stories in this past semester about rape?  I mean, I guess the one was more about abuse followed by murder (see my rant here), but still, Christ.  Honestly I’m going to meet with the teacher about the most recent one, which I’m supposed to critique for Thursday, and just be like, “I fucking cannot do this.  I am not objective enough to say shit about this girl’s writing.  This is pages upon pages of a girl who witnessed the rape of someone she considered a friend and did nothing, and I have spent way too much time on the wrong side of that equation to be objective here.“  I just.  Do not understand why rape is the thing.  Like, guys, it’s not like it’s edgy and cool, okay, I promise, people have been hideous to each other since fucking Ur was nothing but a twinkle in the eye of some random ape.  They’re not treating it as a very deep trauma and dealing with the fallout and handling it with as much care and compassion as possible, it’s not even fucking productive, it’s just annoying, Christ, fucking STOP.

Also, I honestly don’t care if it makes me a cultural heathen, I don’t like weird abstract writing that’s intended to ‘push the boundaries of what we think of as prose.’  Like, no.  It’s not a failing on my part if I want to read fantasy novels with, oh, I don’t know, plot and characters and literally anything other than obsessive navel gazing.  The next time I have to read the literary equivalent of that very famous piece of modern art that’s literally just a piece of plywood painted uniformly blue, I am going to scream.  

FUCKING UPDATE.

So I got out of responding to the rape story, but I still had to go to class so that I could respond to the OTHER story we read (see above re: fucking abstractist writing that I still hardcore do not like).  And I was like “All right, I can live with this, I got my iPod, I got my Fall Out Boy, I got my writing, I can do this.”  But I forgot that the classroom is really small and my seat is very close to the teacher, so I couldn’t, like, crank my music to the point where I couldn’t hear anyone talking and so I ended up listening to the talking.  And fuck me I’m angry.

Pro tip: as a teacher at a college that specializes in taking people out of like sophomore year of high school (I dropped out and started college at 16), it is your goddamn job to express clear ethical and legal boundaries.  Admitting that rape is wrong is awesome, but it is ALSO WRONG to abandon a rape victim when you have every opportunity to help them.  You should not ever be talking about how well a student puts the reader into the mind of a witness and makes their decision to not help understandable.  

Also, there was a lot of talking about “Well, I feel like there was some confusion about consent between the boyfriend and the girlfriend.”  Let’s be clear here, folks, if I wave a knife at you and you say “Oh no, don’t stab me,” and then I stab you thirty-five times in the chest, the cops are not going to be like “Well, I feel like there was some confusion between the stabber and the stabee.”  That’s not how it works.  If the girlfriend says no, pushes the boyfriend away physically, and reaches out to a bystander for help, that is not ‘confusion,’ that is pretty fucking clearly not consent.  Like, you know what, if you’re going to make me fucking sit through this story, you’d better at least have the stones to admit that your student turned in a story about rape and you forced the rest of the class to read it.

I’ve reached this point of universally being furious with everyone in my writing class.  Even the people I like.  Literally just existing in the class is enough to make me angry with you, by, like, transitive properties of loathing.  And my teacher can fuck the entire way off and not make snide remarks about my writing anymore just because I don’t fucking turn in weird abstract rape stories.

FUCKING EDIT: Did I forget to mention that it’s actually literally illegal to do nothing to aid the victim of a rape?  LOOK AT THIS.  You can be charged as an accessory to literally whatever the perpetrator is charged with.

It’s only Monday and I’ve reached the point of sleep deprivation where I’m making up bad Organic Chemistry pickup lines.  Highlights include:

• Damn, girl/boy/gender-neutral/…comrade(?), I hope you’re a peroxide, because I’m having trouble getting oxygen.
  
• Are you a cyanide compound?  Because those lips look toxic.
• Are you a carbene?  Because this feels explosive.
• I’ll conjugate my double bonds with yours, all night long.

And my personal favorite….

• Are you an aromatic ring system?  Because I can tell from here that you’re chemical perfection.
  

Actual good first-time college student advice:

studyingallnight:

fightostudy:

beauty-and-learning:

saintmosshart:

lampurple:

• Wear jeans/pants that “breathe” and bring a sweater, even if it’s scorching hot out, until you know which building blasts the AC to 60 degrees F and which feels like a sauna
• Backpacks with thick straps are your friend!  Messenger bags are cool and all but if you’re commuting with a lot of stuff, symmetrically styled backpacks are better for your back
• You are your own person and you can walk out whenever you need to or want to, so long as you’re not disrupting the class.  Meaning you can go to the bathroom without permission, take a breather if you’re anxious, answer an important phone call, etc.
• If you don’t like the class on the first day, if you can- DROP THAT CLASS AND TAKE ANOTHER ONE!  It’ll only get worse from there!
• If you can, take a class outside your major; it’s a good break from your expected studies.
• You are in charge of your schedule.  Your adviser and guidance counselor is there to ‘advise and guide’ but if you don’t like certain classes and you can substitute for others, that’s your choice.
• Consequently, if you are changing anything drastic in your plan, talk with your adviser and instructors.
• Pay attention to your credit hours and grades.  Never leave this to the last week of school, you will be sorry and stressed beyond belief!
• Unless it’s a lab book or otherwise specified, go to the class for a week or so before buying an expensive textbook.  Some classes, while having it on their required list, do not actually use the textbook a whole lot and you might find some of it scanned online.  Rent if you can or buy used online (schools actually don’t give discounts).  Use your best judgement on what you think you need.
• Tell the people who go up to you selling or advertising things you are not interested in that you are in a rush to class and don’t have time to listen to them.  It’s less rude and they’ll leave you alone.
• The smaller the class, the better it is to have some sort of acquaintanceship with a couple classmates.  They might save your ass if you are absent one day or need to study.  And talking with them makes the time go by faster without it being so insufferable.
• You don’t need to join a club or sport, but internships are cool and useful!
• If you can afford it, take a day off once or twice each semester if you’re too exhausted.  Just be aware of what you missed and if it was worth missing!
• Your health is the most important, this goes for mental health too!!  Note: College-age/upper teens is when mental disorders like depression and anxiety are most commonly diagnosed.  Most schools have therapy services, especially during exam time.  Look into it if you need to!
• Communicate with your professor if you are having trouble with something.  Anything.
• Eat and stay hydrated.  Bring a water bottle and snack to class.
• All-nighters will happen but never go over 36 hours without sleep.
• It’s going to be hard and there will be times you might think about giving up.  This WILL happen.  You just have to make sure what you’re doing isn’t making you absolutely miserable and/or there is something rewarding and positive to look forward to at the end!

I did none of this and it bit me in the ass every time so this is EXCELLENT ADVICE.

ADDITIONAL ADVICE

Don’t let a mental health day turn into a mental health week because you will be so screwed.

Pay attention to the syllabus and do not lose it. A lot of professors put all of the assignment due dates in there and ONLY in there.

If your school has blackboard or moodle etc. CHECK IT. a lot of professors will only post certain info there and not talk about it in class

Check your student email account weekly. A lot of it will be unimportant junk but sometimes it’s the only way professors will communicate.

Check your student email multiple times DAILY. 

THANK YOU. I’m so glad i have resources like this queued up in my ‘college’ tag bc honestly i was so stressed before

Advice from someone who really fucked up their freshman year:

READINGS ARE NOT OPTIONAL.

I REPEAT. READINGS. ARE. NOT. OPTIONAL.

Put them in your schedule, read BEFORE class. And summarise it. For bonus points, come up with some questions about the text and go introduce yourself to your professor either after class or during office hours, and ask them about it. This will make them much more likely to remember you in a positive light (and possibly bump your grade up if you hit a hard patch.)

Your library will have a copy of your textbook. If you cannot afford to rent it, you can go to the library and borrow it from the front desk for a few hours whenever you need it. It is there for you, okay? 

SO DO YOUR READINGS.

I cannot push this enough: burnout is a thing.  It is brutal and it will take you out at the knees.  If you’re mentally exhausted, really do try to take some time off, even if it’s just a day to yourself.

Coffee will get you far.  Caffeine overdose is a thing and it will fuck you right the hell up, so KNOW THY LIMITS.

(via starwarsisgay)

So, after much hassling from my parents and my dear roommate, I went in to talk to my physics teacher and I went “So, it’s come to my attention that I’m way too ADHD to be getting as much out of this class as you seem to think I should be, do you have any tips.”  Because, you know, sitting in a classroom watching a teacher derive equations on the board for an hour doesn’t play great with attention issues and a total inability to sit still.  It also causes problems on exams with a strict time limit for obvious reasons.  And like it’s not that uncommon an issue so, foolishly, I assumed that he would have literally any help at all to offer me.  

He suggested that I make sure I’ve done the reading before every class, in detail, so that I won’t have to pay as much attention in class since I’ll ‘already know the material.’  Because clearly reading between twenty and fifty pages of extremely dense physics textbook is going to go so much better.  CLEARLY the best solution to attention deficit problems.  OBVIOUSLY.  The more fool ME for not thinking of it, right?  Who wouldn’t think of that as the obvious solution to ADHD?  God, Moran, what are you even doing with your life if you’re not meticulously doing the reading for everything?  Because God forbid I realize that doing the reading is literally useless to me, even in classes I give even a single iota of a fractional fuck about as anything except a mandatory requirement.

Since I’m probably abusing sarcasm at this point: I just want to punch him in his smug asshole face.  Really hard.  A lot.  Also the next time he laughs at me for not getting something I might actually flip a table.