week of 1/29/03
 
 
 

Adjusting to the unsettled nature of life as a student
By Cristina Reitz

The culture shock of going back and forth from school to home is, I imagine, rather like living in the Congo for a few years just to be tossed into New York City once you have finally become accustomed to eating pythons and bathing with piranhas.

Upon returning home, the poor college student marvels at the fact that everyone here seems to go to bed before three in the morning. Wild eyed and frightened, their fingers type at the air and they wonder why they have the unshakeable feeling they should be doing something. After a few days, they may let go of their flip-flops and brave the shower barefoot. Soon they remember that, at home, it is not necessary to put toilet paper down on the seat or to flush with your foot. It may take awhile, but eventually the student realizes that, in the real world, phone numbers require prefixes and — this is the hardest part — that Wal-Mart does not accept student I.D. as an acceptable form of payment. It takes a few weeks, but finally the college student is able to reacclimatize to life outside the campus bubble. But, alas, just as soon as the concept of cash is mastered and they have grown comfortable with the idea of bathing entirely in the nude, the almighty academic calendar demands their return.

So that’s where I am. Sitting here typing, I have the unshakeable feeling that I should be lounging in bed with some tea and a good book. I’ve mastered shower shoes, but I’m still having a hard time adjusting to 3 a.m. “lullabies” that take the form of my neighbor practicing Metallica on his insanely loud guitar. I’m swiftly running out of cash and I still haven’t put any money on my I.D. card.

By the time you read this, I will probably be in complete college mode having been to all my classes and starting back to work. As I write this, however, the burden of classes still looms before me. Tomorrow I will drag myself out of bed at about 8 a.m., now that I’m accustomed to sleeping till noon, then head off to my first class of the semester: Fiction Writing. Then it’s off to a class they decided to call “Great Decisions.” I suppose I will then discover if my taking it was a great decision or not. I’m a titch nervous because these are the only two classes for which I do not have books. The bookstore was out apparently, and though this probably saved me a few hundred dollars at the time, I’ll have to buy them eventually anyway and I’d as soon have them now as not.

For me, rummaging through my books before class begins is one of the best parts of the semester — once you’re able to breathe again after realizing the staggering cost, that is. I always wonder at the fortitude these bookstore employees must possess that they can stand there day after day and still smile apologetically as they say you owe them $500 for a handful of books that are torn, written in and whose contents seem eerily similar. This semester, for instance, I have these two books for my philosophy class. One is called Philosophical Perspectives on Language and the other is Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language. They are both written by the same man and, call me paranoid, I just can’t help but feel like I was suckered into buying the same book twice. All I can say is that I am going to be extremely irritated if the author of these books turns out to be my professor.

My other books look interesting and I always hope this will be a reflection of the corresponding classes. So it looks like this semester I will be learning about famous schizophrenics (according to the contents of my abnormal psych book) and congenital bipolarity in quadruplets. I bought a $50 writing manual for my Spanish class but, as it’s all in Spanish, I haven’t taken the time to read much of it. I sincerely hope it improves my Spanish $50 worth, though. I’m guessing I’ll be hearing a lot about perspectives in the philosophy in language or some variation and judging by the class titles, since I have no books yet, I’ll probably do a little fiction writing and learn about some great decisions.

My classes sound promising. The future is wide open. I’m a little excited. Perhaps making myself type when I should have been in bed is just what I needed to re-establish myself in the world of academics. I suddenly feel ready to get back to a diet of Raman and coffee and those flip-flops are looking better every minute. Tomorrow, I will make peace with my alarm clock, give up cash and start using my student I.D. like every other respectable citizen of Chapel Hill. It’s starting to come back to me now and I’m confident that I will again become a fully functioning member of this society ... about a week before it’s time to go home for the summer.

(Cristina Reitz is from Waynesville and attends UNC.)