I’ve wrote a bit before about second year in terms of my
first reactions and friend stuff, but I guess the point of an end of year
reflection is to consolidate everything into one. I’ve shrunk my world a lot since first
year. Sure I’m still making a lot of new
friends and hanging out with people, but I have become less involved with
school activities. I’ve dropped out of a
few clubs and in some I’ve just participated less. I came into college not knowing what I liked
or disliked. Many people say they don’t
know what they like, and in the same vein I had to learn what I disliked. I think me dropping out of clubs was mostly
me not enjoying them compared to the effort and time necessary. Now the problem is finding what I do like and
supporting those organizations.
As expected, there is a huge amount of first year friends who
I barely talk to anymore. Pretty normal so I can’t really hate on it, but I did
find it interesting how I didn’t put effort into maintaining those
relationships. First year I was really
adamant about putting effort into every friend I had, but that tired me out a
lot and made me think it was all pointless.
I think now I have a more passive attitude in that based on the
situation I will put effort into people.
People can’t help but be more likely friends who are around them more,
open up more, and support them. I think
by being more accepting about friends coming and leaving, I can enjoy what I
have better.
This year was when I took my last big chuck on non-Comm school
classes before going into Comm School. I
actually only took one Comm class this whole year. Not to hate on E school, but for me I could
do math and science all day, but the liberal arts are what open my mind and
force me to challenge myself. I may not
study that much for normal classes, but if you know me, I was in Old Cabell practicing
guitar and piano all the time. I’m not
naturally good at instruments so I had to really work hard for those
classes. In addition, Japanese History made me see
what we learned in Comm school through a whole different lens since we read
Marx and Lenin. The world is different
from their time, but the philosophy they proclaim is something I feel everybody
should read if only to hear both sides of the capitalist argument. Even though I don’t think about my classes
that much, this year has forced me to do things I’m not naturally good at and
think in ways that if I just took Econ/Comm classes I would never had
experienced.
I wrote a little about dedication in my last post and I just
wrote about me not being dedicated to many of the activities I partook in last
year. By not doing things I like, it seems obvious that I have more time
to dedicate to things I want to do. Two
times this year I have seen myself be super dedicated towards a goal. The first was taking the Japanese Language
Placement Exam. I knew I was way over my
head taking a test two levels above mine, but I put in a lot of effort through
workbooks and studying vocab. I knew I
had about a month to study, so there was only so much I could do, so I just focused on
what I felt could help me. When guests
came over for Thanksgiving they saw me studying so diligently that they commented on
how good of a student I was. Internally
I laughed and thought “they should see me on normal days I’m such a lazy bum,” but
now I think that maybe that dedication is my potential and I just need things I’m
willing to invest into see that type of effort again.
The second things I dedicated myself to was applying to study
abroad in Japan. It was a long road and
people I talked about it with know. I
kept on pushing it back and pushing it back until one day I was just like, “damn
it Tomy go look at some scholarships!” I saw UVA was offering one but the
deadline was next week so I rushed to get the app done with essays and
recommendations. Then I had to get the
scholarship to approve my program which was the bulk of my hassle. I put in a lot of effort into it and worked to
make this a reality. Now looking back at
it, I sort of doubt it was me who did it.
I’m not used to seeing me so dedicated to a task, but it shows what I
can do if I really want something. That makes
me more hopefully about my own potential.
Eeh this is getting long.
Mostly I think the goal of second year was take what I actually, genuinely
like about first year and try to enhance that while getting rid of the parts I
didn’t like. This meant I actually had
to think if I truly enjoyed something.
Sometimes the idea that you need to try everything hits you first year
and that gets in the way of reflecting if you actually like it. It is good to try a lot of new things, but in
the end, if you want to continue with it, you better like it. Sure my world is smaller in terms of
activities, events, friends, even physical space, but removing things I didn’t
like surrounds me with more I do like.
Now if I find more things I like third year, then I can be even happier
and dedicated, which will channel my energy and hopefully make me a better
person.
