Friday, October 8, 2010

For fools?

So, I don't like school. Yep, folks, you heard it here. Melanie-"lover of all things academic, tears of joy after her first day at Berkeley"- McCorkle hates sitting in class. Lots of philosophy, lots of rhetoric, lots of student presentations and discussion. Not a bunch of structure, facts, lecture, or things I realize now were vital to my idea of learning back home. I feel like I'm kind of wasting my time, and my knowledge base isn't really growin' like I had hoped.
On top of that, feeling stupid is really friggin hard. For a dame that puts a lot of value on her own intelligence, I'm kind of hurtin' for self worth right now. Not being able to express myself correctly, not wanting to speak for fear of public failure and humiliation, understanding two thirds and pretending to comprehend everything, having people talk to me like a child. Being foreign is accompanied by this feeling of powerlessness that I must admit I am not accustomed to. It's a rough road, I won't lie.
Here's the sad truth: I've relapsed. I tried to be laid back and go with the flow. Who cares about school, right? Homework, grades, they're not important. What's important is this experience, culture, life. Wrong. I'm not laid back. I love school. I love homework and grades. The sense of accomplishment that accompanies hard work and intellectual growth, I miss that. I'm a child of the system. My comfy, cozy Berkeley system with syllabi and due dates and guidelines. This whole salon-like, discussion-based, see where the class leads us, kind of system is like trying to stick a very square Melanie into a very round Mexican hole. It don't fit, and it kind of hurts to try.
That being said, I'm learning from the changes. Constantly attempting to round my edges a bit and embrace the culture. Trying not to stress, failing a little... okay, a lot. Definitely beginning to place more value on the freedomless homogeneity of my formulaic "lecture, discussion, midterm, paper, final" courses back home, and I'm actually pretty excited to see the final attitude that I come out of this with.

...

So, I wrote the first part of this in class, very stressed and trying not to tear up. That weekend my sister and dad came to visit, which was incredible, but I found myself holding back the waterworks the entire trip back to my apartment after I said goodbye. No tears, mission successful. The next day, I found out that Greg Giraldo died.
One of my favorite comedians. Someone I practically grew up with. He had his hand in a lot of things, so his voice was like a running commentary in my life since I was a kid. He died so suddenly, and his career was in a really good place, and I was just heartbroken. It was like all of the stress I've been trying to push down completely burst out of me. I couldn't stop crying for over an hour, about a man I've never met. When a comedian dies, a person who you associate with happiness, someone who has brought you laughter for years, it really feels like this limited supply of light in the world just dims a little bit. It was shocking and I'm still kind of shaken up about it. Kind of a hard week.
But it seems so silly to be sad here. I sort of snapped out of it and realized that I'm in an amazing country, experiencing the opportunity of a lifetime. I am so blessed to be here, to be in college, getting an education. I am so blessed to be American and have the wealth to go to a school that allows me to travel the world. It can be rough some days, but all and all, I am still very much loving the life I lead. My new, exciting, Mexican life... como una guera. Pero, una guera feliz.