Blur - Ranvir Thapar Week 14
College. It’s daunting, so close yet so far. It’s surreal realizing I’m so close to the finish line. It’s interesting isn’t it, how college acceptances are labeled as the finish. The culmination of 13 years of hard work: blood, sweat, tears, and countless sleepless nights. As junior year comes to a close I find myself lying awake at night staring at my ceiling in the dark lost in my thoughts, reflecting on the decisions I made, often finding myself playing my memories like a movie in my head on shuffle.
Upon entering high school my parents had two requests for me: don’t do anything that’ll get me beat up and have no regrets. I took both of those to heart (especially request number one lol) and I’ll admit, I’ve done some pretty idiotic things. The most recent example I can think of is Scubaing in front of the entire Rally B and hitting the stanky leg in the middle of the gym. My friends say I have no social anxiety and it started out as a joke, but I’ve really taken that to heart.
Every year I feel like the school year goes by too fast, I can remember the first day of school like it was yesterday. The grind of high school is very real, working non-stop it’s hard to take a second to just look up and appreciate how much time has passed.
Two weeks ago I wrote a blog about the importance of memories and being able to make new ones because memories are what make life worth living, and I realize that high school does not have to be this grind-it-out end-all-be-all experience that everyone chalks it up to be. Yes, did these last three years go by in a blur, one hundred percent. Do I find myself reminiscing about “the good old days” with my friends as we spend our time sitting and talking at the local neighborhood park at eleven pm, yes. If the last almost three years has taught me anything, it is that there is a reason it all feels like a blur. For the same reason I watch all my tv shows on two x speed with my right ring finger hovering over that right arrow key, we live life in fast forward, but it only makes sense in reverse. So as I get sappy from time to time and text my friends how grateful I am for them, it’s not because I’m suddenly sad that high school is coming to an end, far from from it, it’s because I’m realizing that my blur of a childhood meant a lot to me, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as memorable if not for the people I was lucky enough to find myself in the company of.
Hi Ranvir!
ReplyDeleteI found your blog this week to be very insightful, but I first want to address your way of watching TV: watching TV on 2x speed and fast-forwarding every scene? You definitely have missed all of the good parts of every show that you have watched! I am saving this lecture for when I see you in person, but you are correct about life moving in a blur. For me, high school has been moving at too fast a pace. When I was about to enter my freshman year, I remember that both my sister and my mother would constantly go on about how high school would come and go in a flash. When I heard this I would roll my eyes and continue on with whatever I was doing. I never dreamed that they would be so correct until I was at the moving up rally last year, which coincidentally was a day before my 16th birthday. Here I was, about to be a junior, definitely not prepared, and definitely scared. I still sometimes take the routes I would take when I was a freshman or a sophomore out of muscle memory, but I remember that I am an upperclassman now!
It is definitely a daunting idea, as this time next year we will all be figuring out where we will be going for college. And recently, I have gotten more existential about my future ever since my older sister got into medical school. In my subconscious, I still think that she is freshly 18 on her way to college, not 24 years old with a job, apartment, and adult responsibilities! Life moves in a very strange way. When I am sitting in my first-period class, the clock seems to be moving backwards, but when I am on my toes, waiting for my 15th birthday, I blink–and suddenly I’m 25! Great read!
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ReplyDeleteHi, Ranvir. My senior friends won’t stop raving to me about just how relieved and free they feel after finally getting into their dream colleges. They enjoy taunting me about how I still have to go through a year of high school while they will happily be in new cities and schools in a couple of months. This has made me quite existential at times because I understand how uncertain my future is. No amount of planning or preparation can predict where I will be in around a year and four months. While it is exciting, it is also very daunting. I can’t imagine the euphoria people must feel while opening college acceptance letters to find their years of stress and worry finally paid off. However, it also makes me incredibly sad for those who don’t get into the schools they want. While I know that, obviously, your college does not define your worth, I’m sure you can relate to the pressure a lot of our peers place on themselves to get into a “good” college, though “good” itself is also subjective. My point is, these coming years are so uncertain, whether it’s for the better or worse. I think the only option we really have is to get through the coming stressful months. On a separate note, I completely agree with Shari that watching shows on two x speed AND fast forwarding is insane. Regardless, I can’t wait to see where life takes all of us and the day we will reminisce about these years, conveniently disregarding the stress.
ReplyDeleteCollege really is set up as this ‘ultimate goal’ by the system we live in. Every extracurricular and class, each club and elective comes with a background thought about how this will make college applications easier. It's easy to understand why you are starting to reminisce about the past, since we are juniors fast approaching the end of the school year, and senior year is starting to loom over.
ReplyDeleteYour parents sound like interesting people! When I entered high school, my parents only really told me to start thinking about what I wanted to do for college and to get okay grades, but then again I’ve never been a particularly rowdy child.
I feel that every year that passes by, all the past days and moments become more nostalgic and comforting, since people are generally predisposed to be wary of change, but since the past already occurred, that will not change and so there is a certain degree of comfort to be found in those never-changing memories of days gone by.