I started writing when I was young
It was my escape from reality
My passion and calling
to be a writer of some sort
I'm only 19 so I have a lot left to learn
I've exposed myself
I've decided to challenge myself
with the expectations of seeing my writing flourish
For better or For worse like the vows you hear in weddings
I’m excited to see what is to come from this.
"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go".
E. L. Doctorow
"The Office" is a mockumentary based on everyday office life featuring love triangles, silly pranks and everything in between. It can get pretty crazy for just an average day at the office.
When you were little, your parents probably told you television makes your brain rot so you wouldn't watch it for twelve straight hours. However, I feel we can learn some pretty valuable stuff from television shows. "The Office," while a comedy, has some pretty teachable moments thrown in there. You may not know how to react in a situation where a co-worker does something crazy (like put your office supplies in jello) but thanks to "The Office," now you'll have an idea how to behave ifsomething like that should happen.
Here are just a few of the things that religious Office watchers can expect to learn.
I always get the feels when Michael tells Jim to never give up on love and Pam
by inDunderMifflin
Whether you binged watched on Netflix, or on real TV, "The Office" probably has a special place in your heart and has taught you a lot in the time you have watched it.
Being pre-med is quite a journey. It’s not easy juggling school work, extracurricular activities, volunteering, shadowing, research, and MCAT prep all at the same time. Ever heard of “pain is temporary, but GPA is forever?” Pre-meds don’t just embody that motto; we live and breathe it. Here are 10 symptoms you’re down with the pre-med student syndrome.
Coffee: the sweet nectar of the pre-med gods. One cup used to be enough to keep you awake for as long as you wanted. Now, you cannot get through the night without at least six.
Especially when the MCAT comes around -- the amount of hours you sleep will slowly average out to three every week.
Friend: What’s going on with me? What does this look like?
Me: Oh, I don’t know. Might be a tumor. You might as well just check WebMD while you’re at it.
You might as well drag your sleeping bag and toothbrush with you and spend the night at the library, considering how often you go there. Pre-medical students spend an average of eight hours a day come midterm and finals season.
It’s only a matter of time you start yelling “NO, NOT A C! ANYTHING BUT A C, PROFESSOR!” in your sleep.
Biology, chemistry, and physics all at once? Or, better yet, why not just throw lab research and clinical volunteering into the mix? If I die, please hire Lorde to sing at my funeral.
If you’ve ever been to your school’s pre-med advising, you’ve probably heard the phrase “Ask a professor for a spot on their research team” at least once.
Pre-med volunteering consists of more than just medical clinics and blood drives. True pre-meds aren’t in it for the money -- we’re in it to save lives. So, community service is a common pastime for us, and we would love to help in any way we can.
At least you’re up, out, and about during lab. During lecture, you’re sitting in one spot trying not to fall asleep. And, God forbid your professor calls you to answer a question during class.
Despite all the whirlwind madness and nervous breakdowns, you know you have to stay strong and power through. Because your future patients depend on it.
Books were always about understanding for me, about learning the way someone else sees, about connection.
I keep making this joke whenever the idea of books is brought up: "God, I wish I knew how to read." It runs parallel to another stupid phrase, as I watch my friends struggle through their calculus classes late at night in our floor lounge: "I hope this is the year that I learn to count." They're both truly idiotic expressions, but, when I consider the former, I sometimes wonder if there's some truth to it.
Now, I can absorb textbook chapters and assigned texts like the best of them — poorly, skimming, right before class and barely taking in any information — but it's hard to place exactly when I stopped reading for fun. I used to know how to sit for hours at a time, drawn into ever-growing worlds of fantasy and magic, inhabiting realms that someone else created. Books were always about that for me, about understanding and learning about the way someone else sees, about connection.
I ruined my sight as a child by never peeling my eyes away from the pages of my latest acquisition from the library. I couldn't tell you now where that library card is, though 10 years ago I had the number on the back memorized "just in case."
By the time I reached middle school, all I really read were the newest trends, like "The Hunger Games" trilogy, the "Divergent" trilogy, and whatever John Green book was popular at the time. It worked because everyone around me had heard of or read the books, or at least seen the movie adaptations, and it helped cultivate a new passion within me: criticizing things other people have created.
However, that big community of reading wore off as I continued growing, and I feel like it did the same for a lot of other people. I've heard from so many people that the last time they truly read was when they were ten. Granted, most of those people never read the books in our high school English curriculum, so they really haven't read a book, even for educational purposes, in a while.
It seems like a shame, especially when there's so much to be communicated through literature that cannot be expressed in an equivalent way through a different medium. It's like passion lost. There are whole worlds out there to find and explore, but many of us are not inclined or motivated to take the first step.
I brought a little library to college because I wanted to change. I picked the most interesting books from a shelf that I had never read, bought some cheap Amazon bookends, and planted them on the back of my desk. My little library functions as a sweet little decorative piece. It looks really nice when the light hits it just right.
Ultimately, I don't exactly have a point to this, besides the fact that I'd like to have that tidy little Pinterest aesthetic, in which I can carve out a couple of hours, sit with a hot beverage of my choosing, and read someone's memoir. I really wish I knew how to read.
A book by the name of "The Stranger."
"The Stranger" by Albert Campus touches upon many heavy elements... but not in the way you expect. Although it touches upon the aspects of death and love, it also deals with a hidden philosophy similar to that of nihilism.
The story follows the short life events of Meursault, a Frenchman whose carelessness for his actions eventually ends him in jail and dependent on a jury of people to judge the ethicality of his decision and the punishment that he deserves. He eventually gets the death penalty and all throughout he is nonchalant and almost apathetic towards his situation. He finally snaps when the prison sends a priest to him to absolve him of his sins and to cajole him in confessing to the lord.
With this final straw, Meursault takes out all his anger on a system of forced belief into something so irrational and out of control. He angrily questions why he was evaluated as a bad person because he didn't cry at his mother's funeral or because he chose to not believe God. Especially in the legal field where everyone tried to make sense of his actions, he protests that this world is made of people who struggle to rationalize all the chaotic and unexplainable phenomena around them.
Albert Campus is quite famous, from what I've heard, for pioneering or at least revolutionizing the idea of absurdism. One important thing to note is that this is not to be confused with nihilism and existentialism. Nihilism is the idea of believing life has no meaning and that such concepts that try to bring meaning like religion are false ideologies. Furthermore, any meaning that we try to build for ourselves is false and fabricated.
Pretty miserable, if you ask me.
Existentialism believes that people can make their own meaning but holds the same amount of truth as religion. Existentialism can accept or reject religion. Absurdism, is usually the philosophy in between. It explains that while religion and ideologies we build in our minds can be completely fabricated and fictitious, there is a function in these beliefs. These beliefs are what allow us to move on from the chaos in our lives and continue on with living without the fear of an irrational and unpredictable universe.
Coming from someone majoring in business at a school that thrives off of business majors, I know how rough it can be sometimes. Being a business major can be awesome, and awful, simultaneously. We work our tails off to be the best, but sometimes the stress can just tear you apart. Here are some struggles faced by business majors that will sound all too familiar.
Every single time you present in any class, dress attire is always business formal. You constantly struggle to get out of bed, put on that expensive suit of yours, and leave the sweatpants and slippers behind. Although this can be a pain sometimes, you definitely feel like Beyoncé walking around campus in your power suit.
Your life is a series of group meetings and group presentations. You've had that one kid in your group who does absolutely nothing, but still expects a good grade. Also, Google Docs are your savior, because without them you would probably have to eat, sleep, and breathe with your group members. By the end of the semester, you know every single thing about your group members, and either love them or hate them.
You spend countless hours submitting applications, resumes, and cover letters, just to never hear back from half of these companies. You start applying in October for an internship that starts in May, but you're still probably behind others. The biggest struggle is that every internship wants someone with experience from another internship. How am I supposed to ever get experience without getting an internship?!
I still don't know why people think this. Personally, I've spent more hours working on group projects and presentations than I have eating and sleeping this semester. All-nighters are our norm, yet somehow, people believe our majors are easy. There's nothing easy about taking five business-related courses in one semester, yet our grades are still probably better than yours.
When the days get tough and the nights get long, your mind wanders off to dreaming about the day where money isn't an issue. Being college students, we know the struggle of watching our bank account fall into a dark hole. The only thing that's getting us through is knowing that, after graduation, we'll be making around $50,000 a year, and it can only go up from there.
Everyone assumes you're just doing it for the money. Obviously, you can't help but dream of being wealthy, but this is not why you chose this field. Personally, I want to be successful. Success is not defined by an amount of money, but by living a comfortable and happy lifestyle. We're business majors for the same reason you're an education major or biology major; we love what we do.
While all your friends from home are updating their Facebook profile picture and cover photos, you're over here spending your time updating your LinkedIn headshot, projects, and past volunteer work. LinkedIn is your way of finding all of your other business major friends, and hoping that maybe one day, some company will come across your page and offer you an internship or job.
One minute you're in high school, and the next minute, you're all grown up, in your suit, presenting to over 200 people. By the end of freshmen year, you're basically all ready to go out into the real world. It can be tough sometimes, but this is what puts us ahead of other students.
You don't want to be that person who gets a job by sucking up to a company, but you do. You put on your best suit and try extremely hard to make the best impression possible on these companies. As they say, "First impressions last."
Many schools do this because they believe that it helps students pay attention to better. Rather than paying attention, you spend the whole class trying to interpret what they're saying. The good thing about this is that we're able to understand many different accents by the time we graduate, so when we interact with people of different cultures at our big-kid jobs, we'll actually have a clue of what they're saying.
You don't want to leave, because your whole life everyone has warned you of this thing called "the real world." As hard as it is to hear, you know that you're extremely prepared to conquer that new job of yours.
Songs About Being 17
Grey's Anatomy Quotes
Vine Quotes
4 Leaf Clover
Self Respect
1. Brittany Morgan, National Writer's Society
2. Radhi, SUNY Stony Brook
3. Kristen Haddox, Penn State University
4. Jennifer Kustanovich, SUNY Stony Brook
5. Clare Regelbrugge, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
