A Temporary Stomping Ground

To be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure what idea I had of the University of Michigan before I arrived at the end of August. Of course, I knew there was football. Lots and lots of football. And I knew that it was big. And I knew that there was an art and design school.

And that’s about it.

But, really, I hadn’t formed a solid idea of what the University of Michigan would be like.

However, what I did know is that I was terrified.

And, naturally, what better way to tackle these fears than by wallowing in distress with your best friend and imagining every prickly social and academic situation possible.

Since May 1^st, speculation was a favorite past time for my friend Cal and me. Wherever we went and whatever we did, we wondered together about college and all the potential social encounters we would need to prepare for. Wandering through Ikea’s kitchens and bedrooms, we went over every possible hairy roommate situation (some of which have already been fulfilled… plus some more that our wildest imaginations could not even fabricate). Over oatmeal at Dunn Bros’s coffee we planned out how to eat in the dining hall by yourself without resembling that kid you’d see in high school eating only ice cream sandwiches for lunch huddled behind his trapper keeper and some fan fiction. And, alongside the world’s largest shoe in Red Wing, MN we thought of all the ways to go about the 1-ply toilet paper situation in the community bathrooms (it’s a big deal, okay?).

So, as I was heading to a college town, and Cal to the big city, what we had pieced together was an overall idea of The University: an extension of high school with a bit more social anxiety and uncomfortable interactions with other humans thrown in. And, at the end of August, with a hug and a vaguely devised formula for how to avoid said situations, we split.

The locker Cal and I shared our senior year of high school…perhaps not entirely what my University of Michigan experience looks like.

Now, despite the consummation of many of these anticipated circumstances in the past four weeks (I’ve been caught staring at some vegetables in the community kitchen, running downhill to catch the bus with my portfolio and toolbox flapping against me), what I didn’t expect at Michigan was a warped perception of time. It’s been, what, four weeks? At the same time, it feels like I’ve been here forever. It’s not that I’ve forgotten about my life before Michigan, but it just seems so distant, almost like I dreamt it. Throughout the past thirteen years, I’ve pretty much known what the next school year would hold. But now, for the first time in my life, I don’t know what will happen. And, at the moment, my entire life seems a bit intangible, similar to when Holden Caulfield is walking down Fifth Avenue, and as soon as he steps off the curb he feels like he’s falling, never to reach the other side of the street. That’s what it’s like right now, like I’m falling and can’t grab onto anything yet.

I think a lot of this may be coming from the fact that, finally, I am doing what I want to do. While college is a bit of an extension of high school—lots of obnoxious people, lots of schoolwork, lots of competition—the one aspect that has changed is that I get to learn what I want to learn—something that hasn’t happened since…ever. No more longs nights of studying chemistry and calc! Just more long nights of drawing skulls and designing objects, which, really, came just in time.

I did not expect myself to be building icosahedrons in my 3D design studio my first semester of college.

For so long, Ann Arbor—and just college in general— has been this place of anticipation, somewhere I’ve been waiting to go. But now I’m here, I’ve realized that this home, too, is only temporary. While for now it may become my stomping ground, there are so many other places to touch, see, experience. And Cal and I have got some great big plans for when we reach the real world.

But really, I’ve just arrived. I think I might be wise for my future to focus closer on what is important—like saving the honeybees!

 

One of UMbees' hives I visited last week!