College is awesome

I'm not writing anything because everything is perfect. What do you even write about when there's nothing wrong? I have noticed before that happiness is the emotion the least conducive to creativity. At the beginning of high school when I started to ground my life with marching band and things were looking up, I briefly mourned the demise of my dark poetry and melancholy artistic ways. Briefly, of course, because being happy is so much better than being sad, but it is a strange kind of shock when a part of your identity (being a writer) goes away.

I don't know why introspection should be negatively correlated with happiness. Perhaps it isn't relevant. Perhaps I'm confusing correlation and causation, and I just don't have the time to be introspective and I'm happy because I'm busy with things I enjoy. I don't know, and I can't bring myself to care either. The goal of life seems to be to find happiness, and I seem to have found it.

So since I don't have anything to complain about, and I feel bad for not writing for over a month, here comes the actual life update with as little introspection as ever happens with me. Classes are going quite well: I'm taking an interest group set of three classes about Vikings which comprises Swedish, folklore, and sagas (Norse mythology). Learning Swedish has been a reminder of how much I love learning languages and how it really is a talent of mine. I have to take linguistics next semester and figure out if this is what I want to study. I'm also taking Calc II, the most failed class in Madison with the worst professor in Madison. Surprisingly, I'm doing okay in that too. My first calc midterm was probably the first test I've successfully studied for in my life. Usually the studying doesn't happen, or I don't do enough of it for it to work.

That's enough about classes, since I haven't been focused on classes in the slightest. I've also been trying to win a competition with no one in particular to see how many extra-curriculars I can physically do. So far, this mostly involves either fencing or frisbee practice every night of the week, and sometimes both. Yes, I fence foil now! It's exactly as awesome as it sounds. And just because that clearly isn't enough exercise, I've been running along the beautiful Lakeshore path, and occasionally going rock climbing. I'd say this continues to support my previous hypothesis that exercise is one of the best things you can do to be happy.

Other than that, I hang out with people – wow, I have lots of really interesting friends! This is new and exciting! And I mean no offense to my dear old friends from high school when I say this, but I am simply astonished at how easy it is to meet fascinating people in college as opposed to, well, everywhere else, and how great it is to have friends from many different places (classes, sports, dorms, random encounters) who are different and wonderful and interesting all in their own ways. Gone are the days when I could only be friends with band geeks. Before, band was a good litmus test of compatibility: they were generally a more intelligent and interested bunch than those who weren't in band. But now, I meet awesome people on such a regular basis, I no longer even need ways of sorting people into “potential friends” and “the rest of those losers.”

What else... dorm life! I thought I would hate the dorms, because I like peace and quiet and need a lot of personal introvert time. I was concerned about having a roommate for that reason and because I could tell we were very different. But I love the dorms! I like my roommate and the fact that we are very different, because we get along wonderfully but don't talk so much that I can't have introvert-recharging time in my room. Almost from day one our floor bonded over everything and nothing, and we have the best atmosphere. Everyone leaves their doors open and we're all pretty much friends. The first couple weeks I kept thinking how much like summer camp it felt. Why did no one tell me that college is just like summer camp?

I assumed coming in that the first couple weeks would be hard, that it would take me awhile to find friends, and I'd question if it was going to be okay and why did I even decide to come here anyway. That's just normal, I assumed – it'll just be like an easier version of France. But that did not happen at all. From day one I felt at home here and knew I could be friends with these people. There were a few days in mid-September when I wondered when the euphoria would wear off. I assume euphoria isn't sustainable, that one day I'll realize it isn't as incredible as I thought it was and things will revert back to normal. That hasn't happened at all either.

I catch myself just grinning like an idiot as I walk to classes, thinking about what I'm studying, something funny a friend said, my plans for the weekend. Thinking about life, formerly an introspective and quiet process, just makes me smile uncontrollably now. It makes people smile back at me, which is funny. They look happy and bemused to see that I'm happy. Today I walked past someone who had pretty much the same goofy grin on his face that I did, and it just made me laugh, knowing I wasn't alone and wondering what he was so pleased about.

I'm also in love with Lakeshore, the dorm neighborhood I live in. We're on the far west side of campus, away from downtown and the loud drunken parties that Madison is notorious for, near the lake and the woods and great running paths. Of course, we can still go to the crazy parties, the difference is just that we get to come home to relative peace and quiet when we want to. All of Lakeshore is incredibly beautiful, and the smaller dorm sizes mean that people talk to each other more here. The one complaint I have about dorm life is the food. The dining hall options are not great. For the first few weeks I ate barely anything because nothing was appetizing and I was too excited to eat anyway. Now I've figured out that I can cook decent food in our basement kitchen when I want good food, and I know what the better options in the dining hall are when I don't want to cook. Cooking, of course, has also become a social event, just like everything else when you live with a bunch of awesome people.

Some nights, of course, you just need to sit and study in your room with a bowl of ramen, both because sometimes studying actually needs to happen and for social recharging. And that's fine, too. For awhile I had some bad FOMO (that's Fear of Missing Out), afraid that every minute I wasn't trying to forge new connections would be my eventual downfall, as everyone would have formed these great social groups and connections but me. Apparently, this is quite a common problem among college freshmen. You get over it, that's all. You get friends, you become secure in your new social environment, and it stops being as big of an issue. Tonight everyone is out at Freakfest, which is Madison's big Halloween shebang, while I'm embracing my claustrophobic crowd-hating instincts and sitting in my room writing and listening to excellent music.

I love life I love school I love people I love friends I love sports I love Madison and that is my life right now. I apologize for the lack of coherence and direction to this post; it is simply meant as an update so everyone knows I didn't die. And yes, I am realizing that it's a lot more difficult to blog when I don't have to for my internship and I'm far busier. Have a wonderful week, faithful readers!