Hitting The Real World

50,000 students in and around 40 acres of campus can be overwhelming. From being a decent somebody, it doesn’t take long for your ego to crash-land, and suddenly you realize you are a nobody. Establishment takes time, more time than you think it does.

School is more of a micro-mini-super-special-extra-caring world that you are almost born into. The teachers bring you up as their own little babies, and everyone’s ASS [Attention Seeking Syndrome] is satisfied. Fun and frolic, elementary school is considerably easy to make friends in, and to settle your tiny and naive yet wild brain. After Kindergarten, it’s almost like you ease into High School. If you are lucky enough to be in a considerably small High School [a thousand people or so], then making a somebody out of yourself in some field or the other is not difficult. Sometimes it’s so easy that your ego soars to skies and you think you are one of the greatest undiscovered talents of the world, eager to step into tougher territories to try yourself. But before you enter the real real world, you step into a human-generated independent mini-world: university.

There are no liabilities, no responsibilities, no external pressures on you except for your own, and well for those decent ones, their parents. With numerous doors waiting to be opened, you can’t wait to knock on wood and give yourself to your passions. You embrace freedom and opportunity with such vigor that you almost feel that you are born again, like this vivid butterfly that has just burst out of its cocoon, waiting to discover what’s out there, and at the same time waiting to be discovered of its beauty.

But then, there are times when these butterfly dreams come crashing back to earth and you don’t feel that “beautiful” at all. Yes the world has become small, but there are so many people in this “small” world of ours. People with diverse talents, cultures, faiths, gifts, disabilities, luck and everything else that constitute our global lives exist. Their lives are as complex as ours. And when you fall among 50,000 different people, everything doesn’t seem as colorful. There are ups and downs, but why the “downs” are better is because they bring you back to reality. They don’t necessarily make you feel good, but hey, we non-ideal people should ideally worry about what happens in the longer run, right?

On a slightly positive note, its only 50,000 people now; it will soon be 7 billion. So yeah, university does have a very important role to play beyond education, so make sure you butter-fly your rear to a good, LARGE university.

I missed out on the soccer tryouts and now I’ve missed out on blogging for UT too. I really wanted to at least blog for UT. Anyway, next year, I’ll try again. Classes are fun, except Spanish. I really want to learn Spanish, but unlike most of my classmates, I have no background in Spanish, so it’s tough. I’m struggling in it. I guess it will soon even out. The UT Women’s Volleyball game is on today, so I will probably go watch that, and oh I am going to be “auditioning” for some salsa group too. If I miss out on this, it’s not too bad. I don’t want to compete at Salsa, I just want to dance; and anyway I am getting pretty used to missing out on stuff and crashing back into this human-generated independent mini-world.

P.S. However different and diverse people seem to be, when it comes to a deeper emotional level, everyone is just the same. Some are just very good at hiding it.
Wow, a much needed vent - I really needed that. If you’ve reached so far, thanks. =)