Life As A College Nomad

No one is ready for college. I bet I was at least 34532543 times more excited about going away to college than you were, but that sure as hell didn't change the fact that freshman year kicked my ass. Living as a college student is sort of like living like a Plains Indian. You never stay in one place for too long, always moving back and forth from home to school to internship to study abroad session. The food is always changing. You wear the same clothes a lot. Dorms are not much better than tepees. And always there is the chance that you will soon be eradicated if you don't step up your game. It's tough.

The biggest challenge with going away to me was the adaptation. Girls were never supposed to be smart in my high school. You weren't supposed to think differently from the people around you. You were supposed to be a Baptist, or at the very least a Methodist. Bush was a Godsend. You didn't take the Lord's name in vain. Arguments were disrespectful. Using extended vocabulary was uppity and insulting. It was completely appropriate to use the word "gay" as a synonym for "lame" and the word "Jew" as a synonym for someone not intelligent. A total of two black people, one Jewish-converted-to-a-Southern-Baptist, five Asian Indians, and two Vietnamese (a set of twins) students made up the entire non white population at my school over all four years. I spent my entire childhood editing myself, vaguely answering religion questions to avoid persecution, and being the weird nerdy girl who believed humans evolved from dolphins or something like that. Winters consisted of two days of slushy snow and summers scorched and melted with their humidity. My acceptance to Yale was my ticket out. I. Could. Not. Wait.

There's a song in the Disney movie Hercules called: Zero to Hero. It's pretty self explanatory...Hercules was your average civilian...oh no wait, now he's a god. Crazy.
My first year at Yale was the opposite of that. Hero to Zero...or at least Weirdo to Boring. Multi-Grain to White Bread. Chocolate Ganache to Twinky. War and Peace to Babar. Grand Marnier to Keystone Light. EVERYONE was so much more interesting, more accomplished, more intelligent, even had better music on their iPods than I did. I saw no sunshine in the entire month of February. I almost died of Pneumonia throughout the entire winter. So I did what any normal Southern Appalachian girl from a public school and a small town would do: I cried a lot. Called home and freaked my parents out by telling them I sucked and didn't belong at Yale. Mom was sympathetic, Dad told me to quit feeling sorry for myself and study.
So I sucked it up and started changing. Started reading the Times. Got rid of any trace of a Southern accent. Listened to new music. Learned how to play video games. Got excited about foreign speakers and internships in Ghana. Bought a huge ass North Face ski jacket. Things started falling into place. I fell more in love with the school and the people there than I had ever loved anything else (other than my dear family of course). Yale became the topic of every conversation, the excitement of every day, and the reason for every action.

Then I did a really stupid thing. I fell for a guy at home over Christmas Break. All of a sudden, my life was split between Yale and home, my allegiances were questioned, every moment spent on school was a cause for jealousy, every moment spent on him was a point or two off my final grade. It came down to a decision. I subconsciously picked Yale, he consciously picked someone else. I lived. I finished my year and spent the ride home listening to Lil' Wayne's I Feel Like Dying and reliving my last moments at school with a longing I didn't realize I could feel.

I walked through the door to my house, luggage in hand, and was greeted by massive amounts of diarrhea on the floor and a bashful German Shepherd. My parents immediately started fighting over whose dog did the most damage to our house, and all my clothes got covered in dog hair within several minutes. Welcome home.

Now my task is adjusting back to a level of person that my small town can handle. I just want to get through the summer without someone in a white bedsheet burning something in my yard. I have to go back to using shorter words and less obscure references. I've fallen behind in the Times (hehe pun). I try not to tell people where I go to school so they don't try to beat me up. It helps that I've got friends and a wonderful new guy to get me through, but I spend our conversations in constant fear that I'll slip up and confirm suspicion that I am, indeed, an elitist asshole. I've quit wearing pearls and my drawl is back. I'm looking to buy a pickup truck. I spent some time in the Southern sun and actually blistered. I traded my backpack for an overstated D&G purse. I never wear my glasses and I never go to the store without makeup on.

Going back to school should be interesting.