I watch this youtube channel called vlogbrothers in which my now favorite author and his brother communicate with eachother (and the people that watch their videos) via. . .um, video and John (the author) made this one about college and his advice on getting through.
I know no one's asking, but, if I were to give someone my collegiate advice, it would be this in addition to what John Green says:
I've been going for four years now and there are a lot of things I love and am grateful for. The people I've met, the discoveries, the adventures, oh, the adventures, skipping a day of school to go see a concert my friend agreed to pay for and trying to hide the fact that I was running out of gas cause they already bought me oil too (and making it home like a badass), the parties, the open mic nights, the classes. So many things. But there are two things I regret 1.Not passing English the first three times. 2.Not going to a residential college.
I've mentioned (and demonstrated) before that I am sort of an expert at not writing things, in fact I'd estimate 94% of my time is spent not writing DON'T BE ME! When you have a teacher and that teacher assigns an essay or research paper, don't put it off with "I don't know what to writes" or writer's block excuses or "this isn't good enough so I wont finish/turn it ins"(God, that one's such a dumb excuse THAT'S WHAT THE CLASS IS FOR).
Look, to be honest, the majority of teachers don't grade that harshly, you see, their expectations have dropped due to how much the California public school system has failed. So many students don't even know there are 3 "theres" and certainly don't know how to use them, so if you, unlike them, know..like, words... can form coherent sentences and put them in MLA format, you'll be leading the curve (seriously, I've proofread some peoples stuff and it's not pretty).
I don't remember who said it, exactly, it may have been John Green who said something to this effect.
Writer's block doesn't exist, it's just an excuse lazy people give for not being writers. There is no such invisible force that keeps you from putting words on paper, only yourself; so write. The only way to be a writer is by writing. You may not want to write because nothing good is coming out, but you have to get all the crappy stuff out to make way for the good stuff. In short, you're the one in control not some imaginary writer's block.
So advice number 1 is, do your work.
Second, is embrace your sense of adventure. Adventure is a word I don't like using for reasons I CHALLENGE MANDOG TO DISCUSS IN HIS NEXT BLOG, but it's immensely important there are things that will happen that you never would have expected to experience once you decide to take some risks, and go to another state on a whim or into an abandoned building, or just drive into the desert or something. There are things I can't even explain in words, but adventure, friends, and you'll see.
Third, tied into the adventure is to do things that are unconventionally fun. There will always be opportunities to get drunk if that's what you want to do and let's face it, beer pong gets old. You go some place, you've never been, play instruments in an empty parking lot, sing, dance, write, fly kites, play foursquare, make up a game, something to that effect. The it'll be infinitely more memorable than... getting to drunk to remember what happened. DO things.
4 LEARN! This is the perfect opportunity, seeing as how there's never before been so much information readily available to you not just new things, but things you think you know. Like you may think you know what "your" means or how to correctly punctuate sentences, but probably not. Whatever it is, learning it will feel good.
Fifth, take any class that includes the word "improvisation" truly life changing things are learned and life changing people are met in these classes I doubt any advice I'll ever give will not include this.
as for the residential campus thing, I imagine so many more vital experiences are had when you're not living with your family and you're getting used to fending for yourself. But there's so much I've had here that I'm glad I didn't miss out on.
and now, I need to (TOTALLY LEGALLY, I SWEAR GUYS) watch animal house. Even though i have this problem where it's hard for me to sit through a whole movie unless I'm in a theater.
-Marlon
No comments:
Post a Comment