I want to write a book about college. There’s a startling lack of fiction set during these years; it’s like everything skips straight from high school to office life and marriage. But, to paraphrase a friend, we naturally seek out representations of ourselves. And it’s hard enough going through college and all the adjustments therein without having the up-to-now comforting world of fiction to back you up. It’s just a gap I’d like to fill.
But I don’t really know how to begin.
Yesterday I received my very own copy of The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet. And today I finished reading it. All 377 pages of it.
I have loved the Lizzie Bennet Diaries ever since my freshman year of college (NOTE: If you have not watched them, stop reading right now, go to YouTube, and watch them. All of them. Right now.), and have only grown to love them more as I rewatched them over and over again (occasionally I find myself just binge-watching all 100 episodes plus the related secondary arcs in a matter of 48 hours. Much like reading the book. But I digress). At first I simply enjoyed watching the creativity of updating Jane Austen’s classic novel and translating it into modern media. Then, on the second or third go-round, I started to think about the online community Lizzie was creating. So I started scrolling through the comments section below the videos, reading the conversations people were having, the reactions. I even commented a few times.
I was absurdly proud when my comment became the top one on Episode 18.
Then came the watch-through at the beginning of my junior year of college, right when all the undergrad stuff starts to give way to the “better plan something for after graduation in two years” pressure. Even though Lizzie’s story takes place in grad school, the connection between her fear of departing the Bubble of Academia and mine had strengthened. I was staring down similar questions of what I wanted to do with my life, battling similar tendencies toward prejudice, struggling with a similar workload.
Reading the book has added another layer to my experience of the LBD as a whole. Besides adding new twists to the plotlines and revealing specific details in settings we never saw on camera, the book even better translated Lizzie’s inner turmoil, not only over her sister’s love life, but over what to put online, what content she wanted to generate, what she wanted to contribute to the world.
And damn. As much as she procrastinated some of those decisions, girl got stuff done.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been…stuck. I might elaborate a bit in future posts, but for now suffice it to say that I was sorely lacking in motivation to even go to class, let alone answer my professors’ questions about whether or not I’m considering grad school or what internships I’m pursuing for this summer. All I ever wanted to say to them was, “I don’t even have a complete resume right now. Leave me alone.”
As sappy as it might sound, reading about Lizzie Bennet’s success in pursuing what she loved, both familial and career-wise, helped jolt me at least a few inches back toward reality. I’m going to make the most of this vicariously earned productivity – and not just by making blog posts. Hopefully.
Honestly, that’s what amazes me about multimedia storytelling these days. I adore books; they were the background to my childhood, and will always hold a special place in my heart. But there’s a big difference between reading something and sitting down a week later around a cheese plate in someone’s family room to talk for a few hours, and being able to contribute to an immediate and growing shared forum. It’s fascinating to watch the communities that spring up around projects like LBD and Vlogbrothers. Even SnarkSquad, the blog that got me re-interested in blogging and online content, has its own little band of followers.
Membership in such communities around multimedia projects extends well past mere Internet fame; because the narrative originates in a platform that allows immediate sharing of reactions to the content, a viewer also becomes a contributor in real time. Passivity becomes a choice rather than a fact of the medium.
And discussion of the content is no longer confined to whoever else is in the living room while you control the remote. Worldwide critical discussions take place every day around every type of narrative possible. It’s beautiful and intriguing to watch as the swirling conversations on Tumblr connect with the YouTube comments which intertwine with the Facebook and Twitter threads. We get to watch and read and listen to these amazing creative things – and then we get to join in.
Over here in my own little narratively nerdy corner of the Internet, I’ll be trying not to take that for granted.
I have learned that I cannot do homework at home.
It’s just too hard to focus in a place that I associate with relaxation and hours of catching up on Hulu Plus. And I don’t want my apartment to become a place that I solely associate with homework, because then the stress and anxiety will just follow me home. So I decided to do the typical student thing and go to the library.
But I don’t like my on-campus library – half the shelves are empty, and the study carrels are carved up with generations of initials and crude drawings of genitals, and someone’s cell phone inevitably goes off and someone else is always laughing and it just doesn’t feel like a library. The other campus library, for engineering and science majors, though not actually exclusive to those areas of study, is little better.
The Honors library, on the other hand, is just quiet enough, with cozy window seats and cushiony armchairs and soft lighting. But it’s also incredibly small, and depending on the number of strangers in there, it can feel a bit like you’ve intruded on someone else’s class, which makes it difficult if you want to study with a friend. We can’t all have study partners like Elle Woods when she’s cramming for her LSATs.
My third and final option, then, was the public library downtown. This required driving, which was just as well since I left my laptop at home and would have had to drive home and back anyway. Off I went, laptop in tow, and I settled into a comfy chair in a back corner of the library surrounded by windows and the pleasantly gray day outside and I read my homework and made my discussion post and worked on my resume and just like that I had done everything I needed to do except go shopping.
Lesson? Libraries are magic.
When I was in London, I bought myself a day pass for the Underground and rode it all over the city. Underneath the confusing, not remotely grid-like streets, skimming along through the compact tunnels, I felt like I had unlocked a secret warren of passages. I was proud of myself when I stood in a jam-packed car without falling over, my grip resting only lightly on one of the poles, or my arm looped casually around it. Time didn’t seem to matter down there; I would get to my destination whenever I got there, and if I went a stop too far, why, I’d simply turn around and find my stop again. I fancied myself one of Those People, the well-traveled ones who snatch up a map of the local public transportation upon arrival and use the privilege for all it’s worth.
I felt the same way nearly four years ago when my father took me to Boston to look at a college. After a kind stranger showed us how to purchase the correct day passes and positioned us directly in front of where the doors to the car would be, I picked up the workings of the T like that. My dad helped me navigate, of course (he wasn’t about to let a Teenage Girl Wander the City Alone) but I began figuring out the geography of the city and how the T could bring us closest to where we needed to be. I could picture myself there, heading into the city for the day from campus, studying on my way back, my highlighter barely shaking with the motion of the tram.
When I went back to Boston with my mother, I was the one showing her how to use the T. She knew how to read public transportation maps, of course, but I remembered a good deal of the system from my first trip. She didn’t always trust me on which line we should take, but I knew. I was confident.
Confidence was a big deal for me then. It still is. It baffles me that the girl who only rides certain bus routes in this small university town for fear of ending up lost could step onto trams and trains in strange cities and feel perfectly at ease.
I don’t know why I love train travel. Maybe it’s just nice to feel so in control, to look at those multicolored webs and know exactly where I’m going. College is a lovely time of life, but I’m not always certain as to where I’ll end up. When I heard the robotic voice say, “Tower Green,” on the other hand, I knew I’d found my stop.
As I’ve already told you, my car broke down a few weeks ago. I chronicled the stress of the experience in the previous post. But now that I have some emotional and temporal distance from the incident I’ve thought about it more and managed to identify one contributing factor to my general anger at the situation.
I realized that part of my stress came from the fact that, subconsciously or otherwise, I had been conditioned my entire life to believe that if I, a lone female, entered a mechanic’s place of business, they would think me gullible, naive, and an easy target. Somewhere deep in the dusty file labeled “Car Stuff” in my brain, I had noted that if I ever needed to visit a mechanic, I should take a friend – no, a male friend – with me so that he could lend me some credibility. Mental images of scruffy men in oil-spattered coveralls elbowing each other and saying, “Heh heh” played over and over in my head. So I obeyed my socially conditioned impulse and took my male friend with me.
I have no idea where this lesson came from. It only just surfaced now, so I don’t remember if my dad or my mom or some well-meaning authority figure once told me that I should never go alone to a mechanic’s “as a girl” for fear of getting swindled. I asked my boyfriend about it, and he expressed surprise that I would ever feel that way. He had no idea what I was talking about. My female friends, on the other hand, yelped, “Exactly!” before I had even finished describing the situation. None of us could figure out where we’d learned it, but there it was – something in the air of the society we live in had taught us that we as females would not be respected as clients paying for a service in a traditionally male-centered industry. And we believed them.
When the mechanic initially only directed questions at my male friend, I resented it. I butted in to the conversation as if to say, “I’m here too.” Of course, once the process got under way and I became the real client in that I had to approve all the specific repairs and ordering of parts, everyone was perfectly nice. They explained each problem they found without condescension, gave me reasonable estimates, and bantered with me each time they called. Needless to say, they were not, in fact, rubbing their hands with glee at the chance to rip off some clueless female. They were skilled professionals performing a task for which I paid (or rather, my dad paid) a reasonable price.
And yet, even after this, I wonder if I’ll have the confidence, when I’m in a new city on my own, to waltz into a strange garage without a male friend at my side. It’s funny (in a sad kind of way) how deeply sexism runs.
So my car broke down this Saturday.
Well, it didn’t so much break down as start shuddering like crazy and need an absurd amount of acceleration to climb the hill to my apartment complex with my roommate and I cheering it along the whole way. I got it into a parking spot, turned it off a little more violently than I probably needed to, and promptly dragged my boyfriend out to look at it. He couldn’t find an obvious problem besides, well, the SERVICE ENGINE SOON light on the dash, but we obtained a sensor thingy that informed us a cylinder was misfiring. Which can apparently mean several things. But it’s a start.
So then it was Sunday, and I called my dad, who will actually pay for the repairs because I am a broke college student and the vehicle is not actually in my name, and there were no mechanics open because it was Sunday, so I just caught a ride to church and sort of pushed it to the back of my brain.
So then today came, and I realized several things. One was that I had to walk to work for the first time this year, a feat which ended up only taking me 20 minutes and was actually probably the most peaceful part of my day.
Another realization was that I now had to select a mechanic, get someone to tow my car to said mechanic, and inform the lovely people at the mechanic’s of what was going on. Somehow.
My natural instinct was to ask advice. Normally I would defer to my dad, who would take the car in wherever he chose and return it to me in a few days good as new. But he is on the other side of the state. So I asked my boyfriend, and my friend who’s good with cars, and my boyfriend’s brother, and our neighbor who had given me a ride to church. They all had varying levels of expertise, of course, but I trust their judgment and knew that they would genuinely care about whether or not my car continued to function.
The problem is that every time I came up with what I thought was a workable solution based on the information I had, and then shared it, someone would pipe up, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” No, I didn’t know what I was doing, but everyone seemed to have a different opinion on how I should resolve the problem, and since I had asked for their advice, I felt like I had to take those opinions into account.
I have spent today in this weird chasm of conflicting feelings. As much as I told myself I am a 20-year-old woman who can navigate situations like these just fine on her own, I was, in fact, dependent on other people’s advice. Ultimately my dad had to call our insurance company to get a tow truck for me (because yes, I legitimately never thought of calling them to deal with this) and even then Lightning ended up being the one who told the guys at the shop what was going on with my car. Not that I really minded, but I hated being the stereotypical girl who needed to be rescued from car troubles. Despite my desire for independence, I couldn’t seem to stick with the choices I kept making.
This is the first time my car’s ever been undriveable, so I suppose I should just look at this as a learning experience. Hopefully the next time this happens, if I’m interning somewhere on the other side of the country, I’ll have the presence of mind to call a damn tow truck, arrange my own transportation, and inform the mechanics myself of what’s happening with my own car.
I hated P.E. in high school. I never went to the gym or even made it around my neighborhood for a run. But when I got to college, I decided to take advantage of the closeness of the student rec to try out some fitness classes. And even though I felt like throwing up after my first Zumba class, I kept going back, every week, until 2 years later I knew the choreography almost better than the instructor. My friend, the Southern Belle, and I took the front spots in front of the mirror and even downloaded the songs to listen to at home.
This year, after our beloved Zumba instructor graduated, the Southern Belle and I have decided to try going to yoga instead as a way to stay in shape and do something active.
Although we came up with this plan last semester when we heard our favorite instructor would be leaving, I didn’t feel a real urgency to start going to classes when this semester began. I wasn’t doing anything super active, despite my frequent dance parties to my Zumba playlist in my kitchen (thank goodness I live on the ground floor – there’s a lot of jumping around involved), but I didn’t feel out of shape or anything either. I still don’t think of myself as having a physical side, a result, I suppose, of all those years of despising P.E. and all it represented. My default setting is, “I hate moving.”
So imagine my surprise when, after making it to a demo week yoga class, I felt the difference. My muscles, sore from sudden use, nevertheless felt stronger already. The moodiness my boyfriend had so patiently endured for the past two weeks suddenly evaporated. I even walked a little taller as the Southern Belle and I made our way home.
They say college is a time for getting to know yourself; I guess I’m still finding out, however slowly, that I really do feel better when I’m active.
Aaaaand I’m crying again. A story that combines the magic of books and reading with daddies and daughters with the magic Robin Williams brought to everyone with his talent and brilliance.
When I heard Robin Williams died the other day, I probably responded the same way as a lot of people. Shock. Surprise. Sadness.
Hardly a day goes by anymore without catching word of some celebrity somewhere who passed away, but this one is different. It’s Robin Williams.
Who doesn’t like Robin Williams?
From all accounts, he was one of the most well-liked actors in Hollywood, just an all-around good guy. The characters he played in Dead Poets Society, Mrs. Doubtfire and Good Will Hunting are some of my all-time favorites.
So I was reading a little more about Williams yesterday when I came across something he said during a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) last year. It’s applicable to this blog, so I thought I’d share.
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Every year, I make myself wait until August to buy my planner for the upcoming school year. This is partially because the planners don’t actually include dates before August of the current year, and partially in order to fend off back to school stress dreams (less successfully than I might hope).
I love the cleanness of a new planner, the neatness of its blank pages, the promise that this year I will be more tidy, more organized, more prepared. Conversely, I also love the well-worn beauty of last year’s planner, filled with scrawls and margin notes and satisfactory crossed-out items. Some people keep their journals or diaries from past years, and I do that too. But I also keep all my planners.
Rereading them reminds me of stressful weeks where I nevertheless came out on top, triumphant presentations, get-togethers with friends, etc. They make me nostalgic for the school years past.
Once, while we were moving, I found my mother’s planners from her high school days. I loved poring over her slanting cursive, puzzling out what her personal shorthand meant, wondering which assignments had stressed her out the most. As I cram each year’s planner on my shelf, I can picture my own kids finding them someday and wondering about my life in high school and college.
Yes, there is a certain amount of nerdiness to this pleasure in buying a new planner. But I have always been one of those kids who couldn’t wait for the leaves to turn and the pristine notebooks and fresh crayons to fill my mother’s shopping cart. We used to plan those back to school shopping trips for weeks in advance, highlighting and quantifying every last thing on the school-supplied lists and jotting in our own requests at the bottom. Because my sister, “Bird,” and I often had the same items on our lists, half the pleasure lay in dumping the purchased supplies out on the living room floor and divvying them up. A box of markers for Bird, a box of markers for me. Three newly sharpened pencils in Bird’s pencil box, three for me.
Now that I’m in college, my yearly planner is all that’s left of the clean, crisp school supplies that marked the end of my summers. Maybe it’s a little strange to be so excited about an organizational tool. But if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go color code all the events for August in my pretty, shiny, new toy.
I write this in an airport.
Now, airports do not inherently make me nervous. I am a pilot’s daughter, after all. Ever since I can remember, we’ve flown standby. I flew alone for the first time when I was 12. Getting a boarding pass, going through security, navigating unfamiliar airports, etc. are not difficult tasks for me.
Having to let someone else make all my travel plans is another matter.
The organization through which I am participating in the Exciting Thing sent me the flight info only two weeks ago, and made sure to give me “as much time as possible” to make my connecting flight in DC – which apparently means I needed four hours to kill in between my flights.
Being a good little child of the internet, I found a quiet, empty gate in which to putter away on my laptop, having wasted spent many happy hours at home on Pinterest, Facebook, and the like. I can amuse myself for four hours, no problem.
Except I quickly realized that there is a vast difference between aimlessly scrolling through Pinterest board after Pinterest board on my own couch where I can burst out laughing or sobbing without fear of judgment, and checking the same time-wasting websites awkwardly taking up three airport chairs while strangers walk past. I was surprised by the discomfort produced by trying to replicate my private amusements in an unavoidably public setting. Where normally it’s all too easy to slip into the hypnotizing whirlpool of Online World for an afternoon, I found myself looking up every time someone walked within five feet of me, jolted out of my own train of thought and awkwardly aware that other human beings surrounded me. The interesting thing is that I’m not entirely sure if this uncomfortable feeling originates from a sense of obligation to interact with these other people (even though many of them don’t care to begin a conversation and would probably look at me strangely if I tried), a mild self-absorption (then again, who doesn’t wonder if strangers are noticing them while out in public?), or simply the disconnect between a normally homebound activity and my new, busy setting.
But I guess my predicament really says more about my ability to communicate/interact/be around other people in general. Spending as much time as I do either somewhere with a specific purpose (e.g., class) or on my way to a specific purpose (e.g., walking to class), I don’t really spend a lot of down time just existing in the world at large. My time without an assignment tends to be spent in solitude, which explains why I’m blogging to no one instead of striking up a conversation with the other people who have slowly joined me in the formerly empty gate. But as we all sit here with at least three seats between us and anyone else, I can’t help thinking it’s not entirely my fault. We are all wrapped up in amusing ourselves, not taking advantage of whatever we might have in common, just smiling awkwardly whenever we accidently make eye contact.
The Grammar Changeling 