Theories of Insanity

23 | Back to "Normal"

Winter Semester

January

23 | Back to "Normal"

Monday, January 8, 2018

><

Insanity:

Allowing Madison to make any important decisions for us.

><

            I had made a drastic (or maybe not so drastic?) academic choice over my two-week-long Christmas break.

            I had decided to switch my major to Political Science instead of Creative Writing, since I figured there were probably more jobs in the field and I had always been interested in government and politics.

While I was absolutely thrilled about my switch to the Political Science major, I also felt as though I were missing out by not doing anything remotely related to the fact that I had loved to write since I was a kid. I had always assumed that writers could major in whatever they wanted, and just write on the side. But as I had progressed through my first semester of college, I realized that I wanted to delve more deeply into writing as a viable career choice alongside my campaign managing goals.

            I decided to add a minor to my already long list of commitments. Creative Writing switched from being my major to being my minor. But adding a minor helped me to recognize that I had other options, and other talents, to pursue.

            So, the first day of Winter semester brought my first-ever Creative Writing class along with it.

            It was a strange little class—only around eighteen students, and almost all of them seemed to be your stereotypical liberal arts kids. Soft-spoken, oddly dressed, and incredibly intelligent to the point that it made me feel like a kindergartener listening to them talk.

            I sat in the second row that day—the only day that I did so. The professor seemed great right off the bat: she had a no-nonsense way of speaking and conducting her class that made me sure this would not be a boring semester.

            She had us go around the room and introduce ourselves, since the class was so small. I gave my name, hometown and an interesting fact about me before we continued around the room. There were only two guys in the class: a guy named Jared and another one named Neil. I bring this up because Neil sat in the back corner of the class and was high-key glaring at me when I looked behind me while others introduced themselves. (1)

            This ended up being a good thing, since it intrigued me and made me move to the back of the class during every class period after the first one, since I wanted to know why this random—and honestly beautiful—guy was so angry.

            Moving back into the apartment also meant meeting the new roommate: Bella Zend seemed to be a perfectly fine roommate. She had long curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes and had greeted me laughing when I walked in the door screaming at Ashley about how much I had missed her.

            Bella seemed to have the most in common with Samantha: the two were already laughing and talking together without the rest of us—which in all honesty gave me relief. Samantha finding her own best friend in the apartment would probably lead to less mediations regarding including every single person in every single activity Ashley and I decided to do.