Fun Fact about Sandy: She loves dancing around to her iPod Shuffle as she walks the dog early in the morning
There's Nothing Geeky About Going to College
September 16, 2005
We, as teenagers, tend to hang out with our friends a lot. We go to movies, parties, theme parks, and each other's houses a lot. So it's no wonder that when school time rolls by, you and your friends probably huddle close together to choose your classes. It's very logical since if you all choose the same classes, then chances are you'll all be put in the same rooms and have similar schedules. That can be good when you and your friends share the same interests and goals, but sometimes people do it for the wrong reasons. Like to avoid being the loner or, worse yet, the nerd.
I had just moved when I entered high school, and finding friends was difficult. My first friends all wanted to take the easiest classes possible, because they wanted the minimal amount of work available. I followed along, not because these people were really my friends, but because I didn't want to be a loner. It was just uncool. As time went by, I started to loathe my classes. Most of the people in them didn't care about their education while it was all I had, at the time, to look forward to. I was pretty pessimistic about moving in the first place, especially because I left all my good friends, so all I really wanted to concentrate on was getting out of high school and moving on with my life. Sometimes I wonder if I hadn't moved, would I be the same? Maybe I would be too preoccupied with my friends and my social life (since I never would've left it) to really concentrate on the future.
It didn't hit me until cross-country season just what I was missing out on. I didn't see those 'friends' I hung out with anymore because I had practice everyday. Since I wasn't around them, I began to look to the people around me for conversation. My teammates were pretty amazing people. They were dedicated to their running, but they also found the time to take the hardest, most challenging classes possible in school. They complained about homework occasionally, but nobody ever considered dropping a class. Self-discipline and endurance are keys to success both in cross-country and in the classroom, so maybe that's why they were so different from the other people I hung out with. I admired their determination, and, when I looked back at my own flimsy schedule and the reasons I had chosen it, I felt like I'd made this huge mistake.
Eventually, I did make friends who shared my interests. When I learned that there WERE people out there who cared about college, I didn't feel as nerdy or left out. I felt like I belonged, because suddenly I wasn't the 'geeky one' in the group. We all shared that lovely trait, and we were, for the most part, proud of it.