Real Life, by Melia Tichenor
Tuesday, December 7, 2004

Wrapping it up… and trying to remember to breathe!

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Finals are an interesting time. Sometimes they’re filled with loads of tests, cumulative killers that sap the study-strength out of you for an all-night study endeavor that never seems to end. Others are final papers, others are Research papers which you should have been focusing on all semester… but for those of us who can think far into the future but not necessarily act with the distant future in mind… well, research papers are a bit of a difficult endeavor. And, much to my original excitement and now regretful anxiety, research papers make up the bulk of my finals. They are the procrastinator’s nightmare, because they truly can’t be procrastinated upon. The whole research bit… kind of important.

For my Gender Studies research paper I’m focusing on Masculinity (in the hegemonic, how-society-views-it sense), homophobia (in its various definitions), and how these two play out in the lives of adolescent boys. It’s an awesome topic. I’m so very interested in it. I got started on my brainstorming and research way back in early October. Piles of books checked out of the library, journal articles retrieved from online, even a woman’s complete graduate dissertation on a similar topic. I was amassing so much information, getting so many sources… the only problem was that I couldn’t seem to hunker down and begin actually reading through all my information, or, very importantly, starting my own ethnographic endeavors, through talking with peers and experts on the subject and developing some of my own research. While I finally started getting into the ethnographic portion back a week or so, I still seem to have this paralyzing amount to do, and only a week of craziness in which to do it. I present my research tomorrow in class. Tonight will be a long night.

I’m not sure as to the cause, but there seems to be this dreary cloud hanging over the whole of my hall… or at least those with whom I interact on a daily basis. Heather and I were talking about how our room just hasn’t been a very happy place lately, and we need to change that. My solution will take place in a massive effort to reorganize in the few days after my finals finish (which for me is two days before we have to be out of the dorms). I’m going to get my bed lofted, thus making a small haven above all the work, and hopefully below we’ll have room for the beanbag chair that currently is gaining dust under Heather’s bed. I just feel so cramped and cloistered with the set-up we have now (even though we’re in some of the biggest doubles on campus).

Speaking of that, part of me wonders as to the trade-offs between the really nice rooms in the bigger SOA dorms and the smaller floors of some of the other dorms. Almost everyone I’ve known who has had a great hall dynamic and knows all the people on their floor has been in Platt, Copeland, or Forrest, which tend to have fewer people per hall. Having lived in Akin and Odell, which both have floors with 30+ people, I’m pretty sure much of the anonymity of the hall has to do with the size. But then again, a good portion of my hall both this year and last year really did bond together… I just wasn’t really a part of it. This year I definitely have friends in close proximity within Odell, but it’s really only two other rooms. It’s kind of sad to walk through these long halls and not even exchange a smile with these people I live so close to. I know this hasn’t been the experience of many others living in the bigger dorms, but it’s been a point of frustration for me.

Sarah will be leaving to go to Spain next semester, so we all went out to brunch last Saturday as a kind of good-bye celebration. It was a mix of friends from their hall last year (in Platt, which was very close-knit), and the group of us from Odell this year (which is a bit more disjoint). It was good to be there with everyone, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit distant. I think I just really need a break, a bit of time to myself, so as to come back next semester a bit more in control and ready to feel close to others again.

The last haul is a tough one!

~ Melia

P.S. I’m not sure if I’m going to continue blogging next semester… if not, I’d like to thank anyone who has actually been reading these blogs, and I sincerely hope I could make college at L&C seem a bit more like “real life.” I really do love it here, despite the ups and downs I’ve been going through this semester, and I can’t think of any other school I would want to be at. Just remember, the fit is important. There are schools that your best friend might love that may be a terrible choice for you. Others might appeal to you and your learning style and needs, but not others. That’s one thing I’ve learned since coming to L&C… while I may love it for its small classes, personal relationships, scads of opportunities, and liberal arts focus, it may not be the right place for everyone. The best thing to do? COME CHECK IT OUT! When I came here, I didn’t have the best experience for personal reasons, but on the plane home, I still felt it was the right place for me – and I fully agree with that thought a year and a half later… you have to get a feel for a campus, its people, its opportunities… and even then, you have to realize there’s much more beyond the small segment you will see during a campus visit or overnight. Good luck to you all! And if you determine L&C’s the place to be, I hope to see your faces around campus next year!

As always, any questions: meliat@lclark.edu (a word of warning… I may not respond until the bulk of finals are over!)