what is going on.

i should be writing an essay illuminating the far-reaching arms of the sex/gender system as explained by gayle rubin.  but i can't and i won't for now.  because i'm unsatisfied.

i have been going to school here for over a month now.  i've been sitting in class rooms, walking across the campuses, listening to professors, and reading material.  i have been taking notes with the same ferocity that i have for years.  i have been doing everything normally.  but i am unsatisfied.  

take this assignment, for example.  we are going to give you three pages to write an essay that you could write in one page single spaced, one such essay that you've accomplished many a time at oxford.  not only that, but this is your first actual assignment for this class.  this is your first reading response here.  whereas at oxford this would be, depending on who your professor is, your fifth or even tenth.  and, you're to write it on material that you've read and familiarized yourself with, but material which we have not facilitated any deeper analysis or discussion of, material that has simply been thrown at you, already pieced apart, like a piece of meat already cut up for a child to eat.

i'm really tired of having professors who don't really care about their students' learning, who don't seem invested in their classes-  that's not what being a professor is about.  it's not about throwing information at students for them to absorb.  it's like being a good cook- you give them the ingredients and let them make some crazy meal out of it.  you may facilitate along the way, and say that some flavors go better with others and that some lend themselves to this kind of food and these to others, but you give them the means and freedom to process it.

this is such busy work.  and it does not push me to understand the material more.  you've chewed it up for me already.  i'm just regurgitating what we've already discussed.  and i'm really really tired of not taking anything out of this.

It's 2 AM

and I'm sitting here in my bed after a long night with old friends from freshman year, who never seem to grow too far apart from each other.  A group of girls who have very little in common besides open minded points of view and the Oxford experience.  Two years that somehow became so definitive for each of our lives.  Sitting there, talking about the meaningful experiences we had, negative and positive, I realized how important human connection was for us.  Because this campus is full of anonymity.
After two years on a campus of maybe 900 students plus faculty and staff, you learn everyone's name, or at least their face.  You see friends across the quad every day, you go to meals and see the same people in the dining hall, you feel a part of something larger, but never lost.

Maybe it was going out last night, or maybe it was being alone for so much of this week.  But Emory lacks the human connection that was so constant at Oxford.  I strove to eat alone there, I separated myself from the rest of the group- from my friends, from my classmates, from the campus so that I could regroup as an individual.  But that aloneness is sometimes stifling here.  The smallest interactions, the shouts across the quad, the smiles to people you don't really know, the knowledge that you can walk down the hall to your friends' room and vent about some mundane issue was immensely reassuring.  But we weren't cognizant of our need for such interaction.

Being here, I find myself seeking out the interactions that I took for granted, and even the ones that I had earlier avoided.  I feel as if I need to sit with friends at lunch, instead of purposely sitting by myself to read and regroup.  I all of a sudden dislike coming back to my room and spending time alone, when before it was the most comforting part of my day.  Being here, I feel lost.

We have been in college for two years.  But those two years were filled with an intimate community in constant interaction.  A community full of politeness and acknowledgement of others.  But being here is like being put in the middle of the city, you put the stupid face on and look past people.  You don't look at them, and you certainly don't smile.  Every once and a while you run into people you know and you say hi, or you have a meal, but it isn't an every day thing, and certainly not something that happens multiple times a day.  Your network, your community, is suddenly spread all over, and something you must actively seek to continue.  And that is stressful.

Any major change in a person's life comes with stress.  It doesn't matter if the change is positive or negative, the bigger the change the more stressful it is for the individual.  And while we can find comfort within each other, because we are going through similar experiences, it is so difficult to find the other individuals and reshape that safety net within a new context.

Today I opened a door

for a random Emory student.  I was going into the Cox computer lab, and like it was the most natural thing,  I held the door open for the student who was exiting.  She walked through the opposite door.  So after awkwardly standing at the entrance with a door held open for no one but myself, I finally went inside.  I swiped my card (which still somehow feels unnatural), and sat down on some cushions in a room full of people I don't know to read my German lit book aloud to myself.

But I kept thinking of that stupid door.  I didn't blame her for walking through the other one.  We reached the entrance at about the same time, and it probably would have been more inconvenient for her to go through the door I was holding than for her to go through the other one.  But I suddenly remembered all of the times I left the Hoke, or walked into the Hoke, always making sure that the person coming the opposite direction, or from behind me, or even in front of me, had a little bit of courtesy from yours truly.

So I started to crave the human interaction and pleasantries that are so unique to Oxford.  Not everyone was overwhelmingly nice at Oxford, a lot of people would either walk through their two years without acknowledging you or looking you in the eye.  But a lot of people would also stop and just smile at you, just for being on the quad.  And would say thank you, even if they didn't go through the door that you were holding for them.

I'm not here to say that Oxford was the greatest place ever.  Or that Emory is a big ole fail, and that the people are rude and inconsiderate.  I am saying, however, that there was something about the small campus and the group of people there that made it a little closer.  A little friendlier.  And that made it a little easier to get by.