Sunset, by Kid Ink (I love his little hiccups at the beginning of each song)(explicit):
Or if rap (chill or nah) isn't your thing, another song from the same playlist then.
Are You With Me, by Lost Frequencies:
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I find that I very rarely, if ever, set aside time to reflect on myself. I am unconcerned with character development, I just happen to notice it in myself as it passes by.
I'm a little less lax when it comes to my future. I tend to worry about that a little more, mostly because I have no career path set before me yet. I can go in any direction with an ecology major, but there are too many directions - I've no idea which branch I even want to set foot on, let alone think about all the twigs that sprout off even further along.
In trying to figure out what I want to do, I've been looking at a lot of internship opportunities. Last summer, I saw a real job for me in the wildlife rehabilitation area, but unless I get a position high up in that department, in a likewise large facility, I don't think I will be happy. Not entirely because I seek leadership, but I want to be specialized - I want to go to grad school, hopefully for a Ph.D, but for that I may need to study veterinary medicine - a field even more difficult than a doctor or nurse. I don't think I have the discipline for that.
I'm scouring the internet for opportunities next summer already - which SUCKS, because no dates have been released yet this early in the year. I found a program that will let me research abroad in many different areas of the world, as close as Big Sur, as far as South Africa, and as exotic as Fiji. This sounds entirely amazing to me, especially because I can get an entire semester's worth of credits doing that. I was also sent an email from my school about another different, shorter program, which will let me knock out my required upper-division lab class, also abroad. But since that occurs in May and I will (hopefully) still be in Sweden at that time, I'm not considering it. If all else fails, an associate at my wildlife internship last year let me know of an opportunity interning at the San Francisco Zoo. I hope I don't come across as cocky if I assert getting into that program will be easy for me with a letter of recommendation from another wildlife facility.
This is all short-term though. What of after college? A reality, for me, that seems to be approaching a lot more quickly than for my other classmates of the high school class of 2014.
Because I didn't even question I should take as many AP classes as I could in high school, I am on course to graduating an entire year early - given a course I need to take goes through the study abroad team and I can take it in Sweden. Even at a minimum, I'd graduate a semester early (I was two credits short of starting college a sophomore). It's crazy to think that next academic year might be my last year. I started, and just as quickly I stopped.
I'm not really into this whole college experience. Everyone I know is either having a blast, or had a blast and is telling me college will be some of the best times of my life. I mean, I made a few friends, but none I can see myself holding onto - one is too uninteresting (she agrees with everything I say) and the other very reserved (but she texts her old friends all day). A few others I don't even talk to except in class. I don't see any reason to stay here except to postpone my entrance into the real world. I've made no outstanding memories, I agree the campus and surrounding area is absolutely stunning, but I have no personal tie to it. If I graduated right now, I wouldn't even look back. Probably because this was a poor choice to begin with, but I aimed too high with my applications and was basically stuck with this university or an even worse one.
College has become a chore. It is not to be relished, but is merely a stepping stone to the next phase of my life. I'm not happy about what it's become, I wish I had better reasons to want to stay and extend my time here. I was hoping that when the classes got smaller I'd find more people to be friends with, but now I have those classes they are just enjoyable partners for homework. The people here just don't fit with me it seems, and the fact that they come in as large groups from local high schools already with friends doesn't help.
I tried clubs at first. I became a part of my school's Quidditch team, but it was so awkward. It took months for people to recognize my name, and it felt like we met just to practice. We always talked of getting together for a movie marathon or something outside of practice, but if they ever did I wasn't invited. It didn't help that I wasn't very good at the sport itself either; I always felt I was in the way of some of my more athletically superior teammates. Some people were already friends from past years, and very quickly new recruits in the first months trickled out. I only stayed on the entire year because I was too shy to leave. The only friend I made there is studying abroad this semester in England, and since I didn't really want to rejoin the team anyways I emailed the team head and told him since I was so "busy" and since I was planning to study abroad next semester I "didn't have time" to attend practices anymore.
I don't regret leaving the club, but I am very bored all the time. I don't see any other clubs I'd be interested in, and neither do I want to try joining any again. I never even enjoyed the clubs I was in in high school, though I was a part of three. Those experiences are hauntingly similar to my foray into college clubs.
But I'm scared to leave college. I know how hard the job hunt is, and I'm afraid no one will hire someone as young as me. I want to hold onto the institution of the young, I want the comfort of someone there to constantly guide me along whenever I ask. I don't look forward to leaving, but I'm not enjoying my stay to the fullest. I don't want to become complacent in a job, but neither am I making great strides here. I've boxed myself in; I've nowhere to go.
I constantly wonder if I should've considered transferring universities more seriously. A girl in my dorm, my second friend of only three at the time, transferred to Purdue at the beginning of second semester of our first year. She realized this place wasn't a fit for her, and she got out early. I wish I could've been that brave.
I will graduate early no matter what, given the chance. I'm not going to stay here and waste money that can be saved for grad school. Paying outrageous sums just for the experience and none of the education is stupid, especially since, so far, the experience sucks. I'll just have to chin up and start looking more carefully into job careers from now on.
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