regarding citrus

there is an old saying that goes something along the lines of "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade"

i have no idea where i'm going with this, but that thought has been running through my head all day.

hard work sucks. it's called hard for a reason. while university is not that difficult if you know what your doing, the thing that kills everyone is time management. i have said often that my tuition doesn't teach me anything except how to better schedule.

because education is re-learning things. over and over and over again until it sticks. yes, you will be exposed to new and glorious things at a school that you have never learned. and yes, it's true that people find themselves and learn more about who they are as people. but the only lessons of any value that any school has taught me is how to communicate and that spitting on people is frowned on.

and then university, where i had to completely re-learn how to learn and how to manage my time. i was forced into scheduling, into planning ahead, into giving myself ample time to complete assignments. and i sucked at it.

it was a huge blow to my ego, after coming from such a small town where i coasted through doing nothing and managing high grades. suddenly, the things i was learning where the exact same, but the level i was expected to perform at was heightened. instead of a 3 page paper i could write out in a few hours, i was expected to research for a ten page monster. due in a week.

and then i got better. i slowly learned how to manage my wants and needs and school work, i began to realize i could survive and even overcome the challenges of time management.

and i found an ugly side to myself i didn't know i had. a judgmental, mean, snide little nugget of myself which suddenly reared it's ugly head. "if i can do this, why can't other people?" and suddenly, i found myself thinking i was superior and better than the people around me for not staying up until 5 in the morning to finish a paper.

this year has changed me. i have become more independent than i realized i could be. i have forced myself to be more accepting of the flaws in myself and in others. i have realized that i have a problem with organization and i can not always articulate my feelings well. i still snap on people, i still get too snarky from time to time. and a lot of the time, i bottle up what's upsetting me; move on, move through it until it is no longer an issue.

and maybe that's what my tuition is really going towards. maybe the goal isn't to learn things, but to learn more about who you are. maybe university is just a really expensive, lengthy therapy session designed to through our weaknesses in our face and flaunt them for the world to see. instead of worrying about the information i am actually receiving, 90% of my time is spent on the work and worrying about whether my thoughts and actions regarding classes will be well received.

if that's truly the case? i think i want my money back.

because i know a guy down the street who will tell you exactly who you are for about $50.