Old Sepia Pages

8. college

24th july, wednesday, 2019

dear diary,

I WANTED A FUCKING CO-ED COLLEGE!! Not a girls' college!!

I'd thought I would finally get to experience some sort of romance in college, but I don't know if that will ever happen in my life.

I'm upset. I know I deserve this shit, but I'm upset. But then, if I'm upset and expecting more, do I really deep down believe that I deserve it? If I felt I deserved it, I would have been satisfied.

Or is it that I don't deserve even this college? Maybe I don't deserve anything at all, given how careless I am.

Of course I had the opportunity to go to a better college. But I chose this particular course, which wasn't being offered in the good ones. Dad said doing Advertising and Sales Management would open up a lot of job opportunities, so without a thought, I picked it. Did I make the right decision?

Frankly, I didn't care about my life and that is why I ended up here. It will forever be a reminder of how stupid I am. Even after coming from a family of achievers, I'm no good. Perhaps the problem is that I feel alone in my journey. I feel that I can't become someone by taking help, because I need to be self-sufficient and be able to rely on myself. I don't like taking help from anyone because it makes me feel incapable, even more helpless and disgusted with myself. But on the other hand, I'm not resourceful, either. So I'm stuck. I don't take help and I can't do it alone.

I think I never hunted for colleges because I never felt independent. Perhaps because of tuitions and all, I got used to being spoon-fed (which is exactly why I was against tuitions) and while my friends were out there thinking about careers, I felt as though I wasn't quite a college girl yet. I just didn't associate it with myself. I didn't feel grown-up. I couldn't quite fathom the fact that I was now one of those seniors whom I had always addressed as didi.

But now that I've started going out on my own, I feel ready to face the world. Where once I was dependent on my parents for taking me anywhere — and not because I was uncomfortable, but because they didn't think I was sensible enough to handle myself — I can now make my own decisions. Now that I'm getting some experience, I can finally start to form an opinion about what I want in life.

There's a downside, though — I think it's pulling me out of my private world of daydreams. I constantly worry about what route I need to take, and about how to spend my money. It's something that requires attention. It hasn't settled into my subconscious yet; the routine is not yet a muscle memory. I don't like that. Is it possible to participate in life and still have your head in the clouds? I don't know.

Anyway, I've now been going to college for 3 days. I hate the campus. It's too small. You enter, literally walk 20 steps, and BAM! You've reached the football field from where you can see the back wall. That's how small it is. There are too many flies in the canteen, and always a dog who is sleeping under the table in a corner. I don't like the crowd. There are dumb people. I hate them all. I came home today and cried for a long time. I feel so done with life. Among these people from different parts of the country, a lot of whom are less smart than I am, how will I ever find my kind of people?

That's why now I'm actively researching career options. Because ironically, now that I've got a college, my future seems more uncertain than ever.

You know, for some reason, advice never works on me. It doesn't feel real to me because it comes from someone else's experiences, and sometimes I find that hard to apply in my life. I prefer trusting myself and coming up with something rather can taking advice. This is why I didn't take college seriously before.

But now, here's my grand plan. I'm going to stay here in this college for one year and build a CV by participating in extra-curriculars. In October, I'm going to fill out the forms for improvement exam. In March, I will sit for the English improvement exam. After that, next year, I will either take admission in one of the better colleges of DU, where I can have a better student crowd, even though I will have to repeat a year, or I'm going to go abroad. I know that if I'm going to do these things, I'm not going to get the course that I want. I will have to compromise on that. What is "good" according to society is not "interesting" in my books. But maybe it will be worth it.

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