Why I Hate School but Love Education

This is a very powerful video that one of the peer mentors from my undergraduate research scholars program just sent me. It made me reflect on my last blog post and consider why those things matter to me.

 I encourage you to spend the next few minutes watching this video, and while you're watching it, ask yourself why you do what you do? If you're in college, going to college, or a college graduate, why does higher education matter to you?

Time Management

In college, there is no shortage of distractions. There are more student organizations than there is time to figure out what you want to be involved in. Your friends are always around. And there is always some kind of shenanigans going around either in the dorms or around them. If you want to get any work done, you basically have to isolate yourself in a corner, and plug into an alternate reality, filled with printed text and the sound barrier of your headphones.

In the beginning, you are really ambitious. You want to be the first college student to ever master the task of having a full social life, getting enough sleep, and completing all of your assignments. BUT THEN YOU REALIZE THAT DOESN'T WORK. It's amazing how frequently I have run off of four hours of sleep and still functioned semi-normally. In fact, it's happening so much that it's almost becoming normal, and that in itself is a scary thought.

With an abnormal amount of caffeine (for me) and the ambition to do well this semester, I attempt to steer clear of my distractions. I have post-it notes reminding that social media will be there when I'm done. I have high-lighted lists of tasks that need to be completed. And I have memos in the calendar on my phone, reminding me of where I need to be at all times.

There's no doubt that college is stressful. I just took my first-ever college midterm, and my brain just about turned to mush the second I set my pencil down. But before entering college, I did a lot of cost-benefit analysis.

Costs: 
Around $28,000 a year (before financial aid, etc.)
4 years of my life (plus the time I might spend in some sort of graduate school)
Energy (To anyone who has an iPhone and just go the new iOS 7 update: it's kind of like the way that this update drains your battery. High school is like iOS 6: you still used a lot of battery, because there was always so much to do. But then you get to college (iOS 7) and all of the sudden your energy is dropping quicker than you can explain.)
My Sanity (this might be an overstatement, but I swear I am going crazy sometimes)

Benefits:
Knowledge
Leads to a Job (A career!)
Get into graduate school
Meet new friends
Learn more about life
Go more in depth in the subjects that I enjoy
Learn more about myself

Going to college was never a question, but just looking at these lists, I know that it is worth it. Wait, I should really be getting back to work! I didn't schedule this distraction.

I've Been In Love With Love

I woke up with the lyrics to the Mowgli's hit "San Francisco" stuck in my head yesterday morning.

I’ve been in love with love
And the idea of something, binding us togetherYou know that love is strong enough,I’ve seen time tell tales about that systematic drug,Yeah that heart that beats as oneIt’s collectivelyUnconsciously composed

And at first, I couldn't remember why. Then it hit me. I had been talking about the night that I confirmed my acceptance to Madison. It seems like it was a million years ago, now, but that song brings me back to that night in an instant. I can picture the dim lighting in my room. I can nearly feel the way I trembled with a mix of emotions. And I can look back on the post that I wrote the next day and confirm that I have what it takes to be a badger. 

These last few weeks have been some of the best of my life. I have met some of the most friendly and genuine people. My classes are both challenging and fascinating. And I know that I am right where I am supposed to be. I am in love with my college. 

I have so many stories to share and life decisions to contemplate but, for now, I will leave you with this:  always go with your heart. If you don't, you'll always wonder what if. And if you do, no matter what happens, you will find what you are looking for. 

A Morning in Madison

LET'S GO RED!

Classes haven’t even started, and I can tell that I made the right decision. It’s official, folks: I’m a college student. My clothes are crammed into every crevice that they would fit in with the miniscule space we have in the dorm. Getting on my bed could be compared to parkour: basically the goal is to land on the bed without killing yourself. And I now have to wear flip-flops in the slower. On the plus side, our room is decked out in pictures and Christmas light, which couldn’t make me feel more at home.

But if you have ever been to college, you know that the dorm isn’t that much of a concern. We have walked so much that every time I sit down, I feel how much my legs and joints hurt. Yet, I really can’t complain, because these few days have been such an adventure.

On my way to college I had first-day-of-school jitters, butterflies in my stomach and all. By the end of the day I had a group of girls to hang out with, and I was worry free, because I realized that everything was going to be ok—now, I know it will be more than ok. This year will be great.

I have experienced my first college football game. I have met more people in the last few days than I could have ever dreamed. And I have received papers, pamphlets, and random free stuff galore.

Right now, I am figuring out where I fit in within this larger Lost and Found Bin, and I couldn’t be more excited to find out where I fit in here. 

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's--a college student?

So, I'm going to college. That's all. Bye.

PS: Turns out this is actually my 100th post, because I had an old draft.. awkward. Sorry, this was is pretty exciting, though.

1, 2, skip a few, 99, 100

Guys, this is my 100^th blog post. I could give a long speech about how this wouldn’t be possible without you guys, but let’s face it: I could write an entire blog that no one read and I would have the same words. However, I can’t tell you how much it means to me that there are people that read posts from the Life in the Lost and Found Bin. If you happened to catch my earlier blog posts, you know that this didn’t start as a Lost and Found Bin. In fact, my earliest blog was titled, “Write Away.” It then turned into “A Series of Fortunate Accidents,” because that was what my life felt like. As I evolved, so did my blog. About a year ago, I decided that it was time for a change, because my perspective was different. And so the “Life in the Lost and Found Bin” was born.

About a month ago I became set on starting a new blog—I’m not abandoning this one, but I needed something more. I spent a lot of time dreaming up titles and what I could write about. After copious hours scrolling through Pinterest, it hit me. This blog is mostly about life and figuring out what you want. So, I wanted to write about another topic that is important to me: loving your life and believing that you are enough. This blog is called “RechargedBeauty”. I wasn’t quite ready to share it when I first started, because I wanted to add more to it and build it up first. But I wanted to take this opportunity to say that while I may still be in the Lost and Found Bin, I am growing.

This is my 100^th blog post, and there is something special about that. I have come a long way from the desktop in a high school computer lab that this blog post started from. I want to give a big thanks to my AP Comp teacher, because I truly may have never started a blog without that class. A lot of my classmates cringed every time someone brought up that class the next year—they briefly relived failing reading quizzes and their less than satisfactory grades on essays—but not me. That class helped me grow so much as a writer, and it gave me the confidence to keep going.

While most of my classmates ditched their blogs the second that the last bell rang, I am 100 post in.

So thanks, for reading, for believing in me, and for making me feel like it was ok to be a writer.

A special day in the Life of the Lost and Found Bin. 

It's Coming

What’s new? Well, college is coming up—so there’s that. In 23 days I move into the dorm that will be my home for around 9 months. A year ago I posted about being confused about what I wanted to do in a post called “Some Nights (What Do I Stand For)”—yes, like the song. But it had nothing to do with a song. This blog post revealed my inner most personal thoughts about how conflicted I was about what college to choose. Who would have ever guessed I wouldn’t even pick a college until April? I thought I would know right away. People said, “you’ll just know.” Only, I didn’t, and that scared me more than anything. At first, I questioned my decision a lot, but after attending SOAR and getting more and more pumped up for the experience, I know I wouldn’t be happier anywhere else.

I am thrilled about my future roommate. I can’t wait to start some of these classes! And there are so many exciting activities to participate on campus that I want to be a part of. I really do hope that it turns out to be everything that I am dreaming.

So what’s this blog post really about, then? Sorry, sometimes I veer off track a little bit. I wanted to talk about this quote by Nathan Scott*—and other related topics. It’s no secret that I spend a lot of time thinking. In fact, lately I have taken to making jokes about how much I think. Like I’ve said before, I really think it’s a writer thing. I just spend a lot of time in my own head, because there is a lot that goes on in there. I have really been pondering something in particular that I need to get off my chest. A few days ago someone told me that I wouldn’t make a living off writing, and that I shouldn’t go for my passion thinking that I am going to make money after college. 

Maybe I am young, and maybe I am naïve about the world. But is it foolish to want to do what you love? Am I stupid? All right, I’ll bite. Let’s just say that going after my dream will lead to failure. Well, am I not failing if I don’t love what I’m doing? In my book all the money in the world is not worth settling. You wouldn’t pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a house that you don’t want to live in. So why should I pay for an education that leads to a briefcase and bland coffee?

I don’t want a cubicle; I want a movie that changes someone’s life. I want to create that moment that inspires someone to stop living the life that they think they should be living and start living the one that they have dreamt of. I want to follow my dream.

Ok, we’ve heard this before; so what’s new about this message? Like Nathan Scott said, this is my life, and the difference is now that it’s here.

*Nathan Scott is James Lafferty’s character on One Tree Hill (I keep telling you guys to watch this; so I am assuming you already knew this).