Success!

This week has been very successful! I went to Model UN club, and the people were AWESOME. :)

I made new friends, and mostly worked on existing relationships with college people.

I wrote this essay for FIG class, which I figured I would share with my nonexistant blog following...

__________________________________________________________________

Micro Theme #2

Anastasia Boettcher

What defines a person? Society works to define us all the time.

I have been spending a good part of my time as I walk around campus wondering what people who pass me by are thinking of me. When I walk around campus, I try to smile at people who pass me by, but they do not always see me. It makes me a little sad to when people do not see or do not smile back, but when these strangers return my cautious smile, it brightens my day.

I have a lot of anxiety about my own self image. I am not sure who I am. I am not sure what stereotypes fit me, as I feel that many of the descriptors that might have been attached to me in high school no longer apply to who I am now. I feel I have grown beyond simple stereotypes and descriptions, but am I still constantly trying to place myself in a defining box, to help figure out who I am as a person.

Those who insult others toss around some interesting words. Indie, hipster, emo, scene, tool, what do these words even mean? I do not understand modern stereotypes, or the way people of my own generation try to classify one another. If some one is quiet, are they antisocial, or merely shy? I am the sort of person who enjoys reaching out to people who look as if they wish to have contact with others.

It has been a little difficult for me to connect with new people here at the University of Missouri. I know that, because I am from Columbia originally, I bring many of my own stereotypes about college life at MU that I have gained from living in the community my entire life. I have always, and still am, unnerved by the stereotypes of MU campus. Partying and drinking have never really appealed to me, the idea of sororities scares me, and so I feel in that and other ways I have a hard time getting used to seeing myself as part of the University, or as seeing myself as a student here. Because I have lived in Columbia all my life, Campus has always been a part of my life, and so in many ways I am familiar with the layout of the campus, but everything is very different from a student’s perspective. Being on campus all the time, living, working, eating, and going to class as a student is very different from my previous occupations of visiting campus for events, working in a lab, or other such things.

I don’t know what to write. I don’t like steryotypes, I don’t like thinking about them, I think they are silly and pointless. I don’t know where I fit, and I don’t like to think about fitting, about myself as a puzzle piece… I don’t feel like I fit.

Where do I go? I don’t know. I love pottery, I love writing, I enjoy mathematics, I am okay in science, I want to change the world, I want to get involved, I want to learn and be a productive member of society. I am a member of Model United Nations, of Fencing Club, and Stich and Bitch. I work in the craft studio. I like listening to 90s music about people who feel as lost and confused in society as I do. I feel very lost and disoriented a lot of the time. I feel flustered and busy, and like there is always too much I want to do and not enough time. I am not good at remember when things are, what I am supposed to do, I am very skilled at forgetting. I want to be a professor of something someday, but who knows what. I enjoy teaching others, I enjoy helping others. I think I come off as snotty and arrogant sometimes, but I don’t mean to. I like talking about ideas I think I know things about, I don’t mind saying things that are wrong or stupid, because I like being corrected, so that I can learn more. Actually, I am sometimes afraid of saying the wrong things. I never know what to say to people I am trying to impress, because I don’t really know what is impressive about me. I don’t have a lot of self confidence… I know that I like to learn, I don’t like being wrong, but I like being told when I am wrong so I can strive for better.

Sometimes I have a hard time getting myself motivated. I don’t like to delete things that I have said or thought. I enjoy learning from my mistakes.

I have a tendency to repeat myself, to phrase things in various different ways as I think about them. I like to look at problems from lots of different angles. I like to see how other people see things too, I love to have a variety of perspectives. That’s why I love the Japanese language, everything is so different.

I feel like I am a very unique person, in that I am an eccentric collection of interests and creativity. I don’t know where I fit, because I feel as though I sort of fit in so many different places, and do not fit completely anywhere.

I hate spicy food.

I like knitting and writing and reading, but I don’t like doing things I HAVE to do.

Because I have a lot to say, I think people steroytype me as arrogant or overtly intelligent. And yet I’m not sure, I can say and do some pretty stupid things sometimes, and so I feel that others view me as a set of contradictions.

My own view of myself and my view of how I think others see me often merge and coagulate. I do not know who I am, but I am looking to find myself.

From my own peers back in high school, I feel like I am stereotyped for going to college at MU. Students from my high school seem to be of the opinion that kids who stay in Columbia and go to MU are only here because they cannot get in anywhere better. I disagree with this statement, because it is obviously false. MU is not a bad place to be, because if it was, 30,000 students from all over would not likely pay over $20,000 a year to come to school here. There is still arrogance among those who where on the top of the grade and intelligence food chain that the only way to become a somebody in the world is to go somewhere prestigious. This doctrine is prescribed by those who buy into it. My mother happens to be one of those people, and so she opposed her values upon my views of my own education, and so when I did not get into any of the prestigious schools to which I applied, I felt like a failure, even though this was not a reflection of myself as a person, but a reflection of the massive and skilled variety of students, and possibly a reflection of weakness within my application in comparison to the unbelievable accomplishments of others. I am afraid to believe that I am not as good as others, but is a college application a definition of character? Not at all. It is meant to play the role of such, but I am not very skilled at diagnosing my own character, so how could I have been expected to communicate that character to a outside and unknown audience who has no prior knowledge of me? It was a daunting and defeating task that I attempted, and in that I feel that I failed. I am closer to knowing myself, my dreams, and my goals now than I was a year ago, but I do not think I would be up to the task of adequately defining myself here in this moment. I have more insight than I did a year ago, when I had no intelligent insight, and many conflicting and confusing externally imposed definitions of who I was, none of which really applied to the real me.

I felt and still feel from time to time a great weight of failure, and yet with each passing day, I am coming to realize that there is a lot to offer here, and I feel as though I am becoming more of part of a community. It is a difficult period of transition, but I feel that I will be able to get as much and hopefully more that I got in high school from the opportunities available to me.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Every day, I feel more optimistic about being here! It makes me really happy. I am starting to wonder where all that angst even came from...

On another, but sort of angst related note, we watched American History X in Sociology class today. One of the first productive things we've done in that class, in my opinion... *cough, cough* But it was a really good, interesting movie. Dr. Brekhaus made a good point about anger, or summerized a point made by the movie about anger. He said, "What is the point of anger? What is it good for? Nothing."

Kind of like WAR. WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTLY NOTHING. :)

So that made me think, especially about some of the views of Ex-Boyfriend #3. I know extremism is bad... I hope certain people learn that some day, for their own good.