In imitation of the genius but depressing 17th century Blaise Pascal’s Pensées, I jotted down some observations about life. Whereas Pascal wrote about death, love and God, I stuck to what I know. So… being poor, boys, alcohol and other miscellaneous thoughts of your average college student.
Money
1. It cracks me up when I check my bank account and think, “Hey, I have $120.” Two seconds later, I consider my tuition and student loans, and think, “Oh wait, I actually have -$80,000…” Killin’ the game.
2. I need money desperately, but have no experience or skills. I feel I now understand how prostitution began.
TV and movies
3. I demand Netflix be a college class. It’d be the only class with perfect attendance where everyone deserved an “A.”
4. Why was there not a High School Musical College edition? Can I make it? More importantly, can shirtless Zac Efron still play the male lead?
Drinking and Dining
5. On applications can I list “alcoholic” and “fraud” beneath “student”? Because I’m much better at the first two.
6. I am constantly amazed at how lonely we all are in a culture where hookups and vodka run freely.
7. I often speculate about the possibility of dining services secretly entering us all into a remix edition of Supersize Me (documentary turned reality competition). Am I winning??
Appearance
8. On campus, I always feel like the one ugly friend who somehow got allowed to hang out with a bunch of hotties. Don’t worry, onlookers, it baffles me, too.
9. My gravest concern is that someone will look past my current profile picture on Facebook. I’m just getting out of my awkward middle school phase. Have mercy, people.
Boyzz
10. Never mind. My gravest concern is that someone will make my Facebook search history public. So many boys I’ve never talked to will be so confused…
11. I fall in love all the time with strangers on campus and never see them again. I have to raise the possibility that somewhere, somehow, all of these people have conglomerated into one massive group with a polar opposite schedule to my own and I’m missing out on the sexiest group alive.
12. People say something like there’s an 80% chance you’ll meet your spouse at college. I’m like lolz. Does the boy who just texted me “yo” at 1 a.m. seem like a good life partner to you?
Majors and Careers
13. Kiddos who major in something that “will get them a job” continue to bewilder me. But as an English major, I digress.
14. I just want to get rich and famous from the comfort of my own bed.
Performances
15. Theater majors take acting classes but all college students are actors– all of us wearing different masks, a new performance every day. Theater majors are just eight hundred steps ahead of us. Damn them.
Quarter-Life Crisis
16. I simultaneously feel 12 years old and 36. I’m too young to have done anything important and too old for the little that I have done. In short, my life is in shambles and I’m a mess.
Independence
17. I’m almost twenty years old. Of course I can think for myself. (But when I try I’m like… “Cheese… Potatoes. Oh my God, I’m hungry… Uhh… What are words I know?? Original thoughts, come to me. Mom, help. Help me.”)
18. I miss being home while I am at school. At home, I completely regret wanting to come home (and all my other choices) and beg school to start again. The paradox of it all annoys the shit out of me.
19. My parents tell me to call more, but when I call they’re not very interested in what I have to say. I’m sorry, but the feeling is mutual. During the dial tone, I wonder if they feel how much I’m experiencing that I don’t mention. And I wonder if they’d like to know, if they’d like to ask but don’t.
