Home...and complaints about School

I'd wanted to write the past several days, but then got lazy and didn't want to bother. So that was my homecoming story.

I got to talk to Laurel on Skype finally...she was able to get a microphone and I thought to bring my mic home with me so we talked yesterday!! That was really exciting!!!!

I visited Smith on Friday-Saturday....went to the K and got to sing and saw Hillel, slept on Sarah's floor, sang three part rounds with Alicia and Sarah...most amazing thing ever!!! I love singing not in chorus because in chorus I feel like a poor excuse for a Soprano I because the A above the staff is about as high as I can go...but then when I sing with other people we always have to start too low so that everyone else can reach the notes and then I realize I'm a Sop I after all!!!! But anyway...Sarah and Alicia are both Sop II's...so our voices work well together when we are singing!!! I got to play Sylvia, Alicia's guitar...and she played soooo well!!!! And my mom's guitar, now that I'm home also sounds soooo good. So much more fun playing nice sounding and feeling guitars than the really old piece of wood that I have with me at school. I also got to see Haven House again...this time with everyone moved in...and the beautiful new dinning room sofas and rug and stuff!!!! It looked so scary when it didn't have anything in it yet! Now I'm looking forward to getting to live in that beautiful house my senior year. Unfortunately I think many of the singles aren't that big....but hopefully I'd be able to get a good lottery number and get one of the decent sized ones!!!

So while I was at Smith it felt good to be back...but I also missed Wesleyan. But then on my drive home I was thinking about Smith and Wesleyan...and while I'd visited Smith I didn't really belong there as much this year- I was just visiting, yet this year I belong at Wes. At first at Wes I'd thought of Smith as my school and had that Smithie mentality of Smith being the best place ever, better than any other place. Smith was MY school, Wesleyan was a place which seemed really nice, but I'd have had to have gone there from the beginning to have it really be mine...but then I'd never have experienced Smith. Smith is so much a mix of bad and good that I never can decide it it's really good that I went there, or if it has been a major waste of time. I suppose I've learned a lot and had really great professors and met great people, so it can't be anything other than a good use of my time. I thought I was a Smithie for good. There was no way around that. I think like a Smithie, and I will forever.

But then on the way home I reflected on how weird many Smithies are, and how anti-social, and how stuck up, and how they like to think that they are the best people on earth, and how they like to complain about STRESS...instead of just doing their work and realizing that Smith isn't the hardest school academically. I'm having a moment when I don't really like the feeling of this community. I know that if I were more open and fun I could affect how others behave...I could set a good example. So it's as much my fault as any other Smithie's. Smith was great at the beginning...but after being there for two years the social life is a bit limited, the campus is small, I feel as though I can judge people based on where they live on campus, how they dress and what they act like. This was the problem in high school too: you begin to think you can judge people...yet at Wesleyan I haven't been there long enough to really get a feel for the culture in that way and to judge who people are before I meet them. It is better to not judge...and so I am glad that I am not able to do so currently!!!

Before Smith seemed like some amazing place of people who think a lot and care about things and are really smart and talented...but now I've been in the world of academia long enough that that isn't enough...I want to DO things, not just TALK about them!!! Smith isn't the only place like that. There has to be more to life than sitting around in your living room with your house mates talking about things. Now I want to go to Frat parties, watch my neighbors roll down Foss Hill, go to WesShop at 11:30 pm!!! At first Smith was big enough for me, but now it's not. At first Wes seemed really big and impersonal and not like home as Smith does...but I've learned that you create a home wherever you go. That's how humans have survived for so long when not staying in the same places. Being at Smith I couldn't understand how other people could have a community in their big dorms...and now I've found that I have as good a community in my big dorm at Wes as I've had at Smith...actually better than some.

Smith seemed both worse and better than Wes to me. Wes seemed ordinary. Yet now I'm realizing that Smith might be extraordinary, but that isn't necessarily a good thing. If it's so extraordinary that being there you become wrapped up in your own little Smith world and lose touch with the rest of the world, that's not necessarily a GOOD thing. Smith has this idea that different=better. Same=bad. So though Wes does not stand out from other schools as easily as Smith does, it is still special...and among the other special schools (Midd, Amherst, Trinity etc) it stands out because it is WES!!!! At some point you have to love your school simply because IT IS YOUR school. And I currently think that it would be a let down to go back to the small, confined Smith community. I love the Wes campus, the people I've met, the organizations, my dorm...the classes...though I also hate the classes at the same time. I'm having that Twelve College Exchange Program problem of not wanting to go back to my school...NO...let me call Smith my "other" school. Wes is my school now...I don't care if I officially don't belong (I'm in the TCEX class, not the 2009 class) but still...WES IS MY SCHOOL.

Smith is cute...and spoils its students...and is this small safe environment only of women...(except that only the President's office claims it's a women's school...otherwise everything else is gender neutral...I've always wondered where the fun was in going to a women's college that wasn't really a women's college...but oh well.)...which at first seemed sad, but then I got used to it...but now I'm used to Wesleyan and I don't want to go back. I felt more special at Smith than anywhere else...but now it seems silly to go to a school which excludes half of the world. Yes I've learned that women have power, but there are women in power at Wes too. And what's the point of being in a place which protects you from half of the world so that when you meet that other half you forget that it exists and never learn how to deal with it???

I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK TO SMITH. SMITH SUCKS!!!!!!! I mean, it's a great place, but I feel like I've expanded beyond it now. I could try to transfer...and then my friends will go abroad and I won't see them anyway...and I'll have to struggle to fit the classes I've taken into what the Wes requirements are. I could try to transfer and take a year off so I end up in the class my friends are...but then I might decide not to go back to school. So I guess I'll have to go back to Smith....enjoy it, knowing that I'll have the rest of my life to live in a more normal place. And perhaps I'll apply to Wes for Grad. School...and then I'll be an official Wes student and get a degree from there and I can belong to both places!!!!!

I think that's enough rambling for one day. I need to get up and go for a walk, or do my extra credit Greek paper, or something...instead of sitting here wallowing in sorrow that I never applied to Wes in the first place and worrying about having to go back to Smith...and missing Wes. I hate being at home when it gives me a chance to think too much.

Oh well...soon I'll be back at school...and can hope that the year goes really slowly, so I can enjoy Wes for the one year I have there.