Like a piece of your heart left behind from that first love—or what one supposed to be a first love—a piece of me will be left at Baylor after May 13. An arm, a leg...no, part of what it means to me to exist will be left here, hopefully, to act as an anchor for my future accomplishments and failures. And that anchor, most likely, will be symbolic of a place where I developed and nourished my own distinct way of thinking.
A little over four years since high school, here I sit. I can recall the thoughts that fluttered around my head before arriving here. I desired greatly to be someone popular—someone I was not at any point prior in my life. Even at that point, however, I second-guessed the real possibility of such a transformation; I wasn't, after all, one to magnetically pull people towards me with an errant glance or a witty statement. But perhaps, just perhaps, I would make a better case for myself in the years to come.
I have done so, but in a ways I would not have foreseen (generally) 48 months ago. I have a great deal of friends now, whom are trustworthy and reliable. But more to the point, I have a broadening number of close friends—this—this is something money and popularity cannot buy, something I have desired since my lonely days of 6th-grade angst.
This proves the point that seeking advice from those who have gone before yourself is nearly always a good idea. Everyone told me that my life-long friendships would be made in college rather than in the identity-crisis years of high school. I expected, but also hoped for this to be true. And it has.
Similarly, however, my own second-guessing of my idealized level of known-ness on campus was also proven correct. No, I have not grown into a person who draws people to me more so than any average person. However, people who are 5 years old than me, and nearly all people older than that, are typically drawn to me in rather unexpectedly large percentages.
And as much as I despise taking the time to read 4 unbearably long chapters of my psychology text book (tonight, before an exam in the morning), I have learned truths about myself—and others—that are certainly indispensable. The habits of people who are happy, healthy, and live longer lives, for example. The good, of course, with the bad. The habits of those who are lonely, depressed, of ill-health, and stressed I have also gleaned.
Like Ben Franklin, I have often wanted to test my abilities and limits given particular mental or physical goals, and to record how well I perform. (Perhaps that sounds a bit pretentious, but no matter, I am merely a product of an individualistic society—Ben Franklin is a model of such a society.) Am I as smart as I (or perhaps others) believe me to be?
Given a situation most conducive to my own learning—whatever that may be, and it most certainly is not the typical academic environment, which has been proven to be more conducive to members of the beloved opposite sex—would I be more “intelligent,” or could my memory be much more effective? Indeed, would I have grown up as a different person if the education structure was different for boys and girls like me, or just boys like me, or whatever.
Of course, there’s no way to test this unless I was cloned, and the little me raised by the same parents with the same wonderful qualities…
(this thought continued after the looming psych test)
