Thoughts Traveling Through the Thinker

I recently was walking to a 10 am class in front of a pair of boys. They were telling a very sad story about the one guy getting cheated on. They had very deep voices. The one guy seemed really derailed and upset by the whole situation. He said, "She told me that she was black out drunk and didn't even remember agreeing to date this other guy. Whatever, she probably is just telling me that so that she can fornicate." I started cracking up. I realized, in that exact moment, that I was finally in college. Because, yknow, only mature college students say "fornicate" instead of "hook up." When they passed me, as people always do since my legs are so short and useless, they were in sports attire. This really took me back. I was expecting a different image. I was doubly impressed about the vocabulary after seeing them. And then I realized that I might attend college, but I do not act like a college student. I still stereotype and assume and judge. Everyone talks about college as being care free and doing whatever you want without being made fun of. But how can I expect other people to do that when I am not that way myself? I like to think of myself as pretty mature. People used to tell me I was an old soul stuck in a teenage body. But that was in middle school and underclassmen high school times. Maybe I was an old soul then, but I stopped aging and everyone else surpassed me. Because I totally judge and assume certain looks to go with certain phrases. Time to grow up I guess.

In psych class, we had to watch this video that posed the question, "why do girls go to the bathroom in groups?" and this is not the first time I have heard this question. As if it is some mystery out there in the world that no one will ever understand. They did an actual psychological experiment on this question, and finally determined that girls went in groups so that they could gossip in the bathroom privately (they determined this by putting cameras in the bathrooms of high schools, which is so incredibly wrong to me). But, I think they are way over thinking this. I tell people to go to the bathroom with me so that I do not have to worry about finding people when I come back out. I fear being abandoned. I always went in groups in freshman and sophomore year because I did not trust the groups of people I ate with to be there when I got back. Or I ask people to go with me if I need period supplies. Or, if we are in public, like an Indians game, I have to bring people with me for safety. Girls cannot go to the bathroom alone in public, and they cannot leave one girl behind alone, so groups are inevitable. I find it so funny that they conducted an experiment on this. Or that guys are so perplexed by it. We do not have to watch each other pee like guys do, so of course we bring people with us, the company is always nice. It isn't some complex and challenging life wonder.

I am taking an honors class about metacognition. My teacher loves to remind us that it is an honors course and we are honors students. This makes me laugh. If we are smart enough to be in the honors college, don't we already know how to learn? Why do we have to take a class to teach us how to learn (It is a mandatory course)? 

Last night, I rediscovered the soundtrack for Whip It, the rollerskating movie with Ellen Page. It is a great soundtrack. There is one song titled "learnalilgivinanlovin" by Gotye on it. I love this song so much. It is so freaking catchy. O my goodness. I am listening to it again right now just for fun. But, the lyrics are amazing:

"If yer always tryin' to get to the top, You don't get to the bottom of nothin'! Then you're gone before you know it; You'd better stop! (STOP!) Learn a little givin' and lovin'. It's been done before. C'mon, do it again! Coz if it's good, Then you should share it round. What's the use of keeping all the good things that you've found to yourself? Learn a little, learn a little Learn a little givin' Learn a little, learn a little Learn a little givin' and lovin'. You don't gotta keep no other man down, For you to get up, There's no need to worry. Just don't give away your self-respect, Coz if it's all you've got left, The rest don't really matter now anyway honey! But give away love (GIVE IT!) And give it for free, No strings attached, Just don't ask for it back Learn a little, learn a little Learn a little givin' Learn a little, learn a little Learn a little givin' and stop! Givin! Learn a little givin' It's been done before C'mon do it again! Learn a little, learn a little learn a little givin' and lovin'!" 

Last night I discovered that I am an idiot. I was talking to my friend about our old Latin teacher. She started telling a story about how our old teacher would wave at kids walking by in the halls and say, "Wave if you're a fool," and everyone would wave and he would laugh super loud at them. I said to her, "What are you talking about? You mean 'wave at fearful?'" To which she started cracking up. She told she would give me everything in her possession if the actual line was "wave at fearful," she said it made no sense and made fun of me. We called two other latin students and they too laughed at me. One even laughed from inside the library, where she should be silent. I put a poll on twitter, where people began to harass me even more. I am so ashamed. I genuinely thought he was saying "wave at fearful." This reminded me of something I once told my friend: "you know how you sometimes really think you know the lyrics to a song and then one day you look up the lyrics and realize you've been singing them completely wrong this whole time? Life can be like that sometimes." I have had a lot of these incidents recently. I learned that bruschetta is pronounced "brew-sket-a" and not "brew-schet-a." I learned that I have been throwing a frisbee wrong. That I have been spelling mnemonic devices like the pneumonic plague. But at least I can admit all of these stupid misunderstandings and evolve from it. At least I know when life is like looking up the lyrics and realizing you have been wrong. I think one of the worst flaws in life is looking up the lyrics and thinking you are still right and superior to the lyrics. Like how my mom does not follow google maps, because she thinks she knows a faster route every time. Obviously my looking up the songs thing is a metaphor for more dire situations in which people cannot adapt or accept knowing that they are wrong, and my comment on my moms map thing is just really funny to me. I love watching her direct people. Especially when we were in Britain and tensions got so high that my brother had to take over the navigator position. Isn't it funny how easily and deeply humans can be flustered by tiny things?

I recently realized that the things I have been calling "spider eggs" on my skin is actually eczema. So I now have officially everything wrong with skin that you can possibly have. 

No one tells you how much free time you will have in college. They always say that college is the busiest four years of your life, but, what they fail to remind you of, is that it is only this busy if you get involved. The first three weeks here, there was nothing to be involved IN, and it was so boring. No one ever warns you of the tedium of college. I miss my friends a lot. I am listening to the Beatles right now, and craving their presence. I would do anything to be back in the car with them driving to Cedar Point again at the end of summer, before everything changed. We don't get to talk much now, but when we do, its awesome and everyone is super happy. I miss their presence immensely. I have met some cool people here at college, but no one is like my high school friends. They are truly unique creatures who care deeply for each other and I miss them. I miss the relaxation of my home. I used to get restless there, but now, being in constant human interaction at college, I ache for the comfort of my home and my parents. I miss my mom's cooking and her having dinner ready for me when I got home. I miss my dad's popcorn and watching movies with them every night. No one here likes good movies. Even in cinema club, we watched Animal House, a terrible Frat boy movie. People criticize kids who stay in touch with high school or who keep in touch too frequently with their parents, telling them they need to branch out more. But, what if we already met the coolest people we are meant to meet? I'm not saying I'm gonna isolate myself in my room and never meet people, I spend a lot of time with people I never knew in high school or complete strangers, I am just saying, what if I already met the most amazing people I will ever come across, and now I won't see them for the next four years? That would suck.

A lot of my classes have been talking about ADHD and the controversy around it. It dwelled on me one day, what if ADHD people are the modern day Divergents? The book series Divergent is about a futuristic society that has five factions. People are sorted into these groups based on a virtual reality test. Essentially, you are either happy, selfless, smart, honest, or brave. Never a combination of something. Divergent people are people who are a blend of these factions, and the government tries to hide them or kill them off, saying they are a threat to how society runs. However, at the end of the series, you find out that this society is placed in the futuristic ruins of Chicago (or Detroit or something I do not remember), and the actual government in modern America created the society as a simulation to see how humans would behave if society had a completely fresh start. Would there still be war? Divergent people were invented to save the society, they were the good guys, and the society was suppressing them. ADHD people are our Divergent people. We treat them as diseased humans and shove pills down their throats to "normalize" their behavior so that we can push them into desks and keep them there to learn material WE determine to be important. Maybe these people do not have a problem. Maybe they are just meant for greater things than education and sitting still every day for 7 hours at a time. What if we let them be energetic? Where would their energy take them? The Education system is draining the life out of humans. Imagine what life would be like if we channeled everyone's talents properly, instead of matching them to our own talents.