Test Drive: Life in the Fast Lane

It's just stuff.

Our storage room in our apartment flooded, ruining J's collection of baseball/basketball (the most heartbreaking for me)/football cards, and boxes of ornaments that I bought when I worked for Hallmark. Luckily, my childhood ornaments are still at my parents.

Between the insurance headaches (having to dig what I thought would be considered trash out of a dumpster), the apartment complex fixing the hole in the ceiling when the leak originated when I specifically requested they leave it be until Friday so the insurance guy could see it, and countless other annoyances, I am ready to go on vacation.

So I am. To visit one of my closest girl friends, who I miss dearly. It couldn't come at a better time because sometimes you just need a little girl time.

I guess I was always a guys' girl in high school, which was odd since I attended a private all girls' school. Most of my girl friends had lots of platonic guy friends, and I did too. Guys were easier to talk to. Guys never got jealous, they let you borrow their clothes and didn't care when they got them back, and they were always ready to go out without spending hours on their hair, dress, and makeup.

Despite feeling more comfortable with guys, I had a core group of girl friends. We would fight, but we'd get over it. When it comes to those good solid girl friends, what's in the past is in the past. Girl friends get things that guys don't always understand, or maybe girls don't always understand what guys seem to take at face value.

Case in point:

Guy wants to spend Friday night with his friends.

Guy meaning: I want to spend Friday night with my friends.
Girl meaning: He doesn't want to spend Friday night with me.

If one of my girl friends tells me this story, I will go with the guy meaning. However, if the case in point happens to me, I automatically jump to the girl meaning. Why? Because I am a girl. And girls get that. It may be irrational, but sometimes we need irrational. We need to cry. We need to vent our frustrations with men in this meat and potatoes world by drinking girly drinks with our girl friends and spending too much money on uncomfortable shoes. We need to blow things out of proportion like losing collectibles in a storage room flood and blame it on "the man" (not our man, but that metaphorical man we tend to blame things on). We need to go to yoga, run on the treadmill, eat healthy for a week, and then buy a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup SonicBlast (which has more than half an average person's daily calorie count) and eat it in under ten minutes. Because that's what girls do.

Sometimes I think it would be much easier to be a guy. More guy friendships are made when one guy beats up another guy, and then they are best friends. If a girl hit me in the face, I'd have a restraining order on her. Guys usually don't care as much about their hair or fashion, and they don't have to worry about makeup. Guys don't talk on the phone for hours to their buddies, which would save a lot of time. Guys don't read chick lit novels or spend money of pedicures or girly drinks. Guys don't cry at Kodak commercials or during Senior Night (every year) for their alma mater's basketball team. But, you know what? I wouldn't give it up. Despite the hair removal, blisters from heels, underwire issues, and moments of emotional turmoil, I like being a girl, and I love my girl friends.

It has been seven years (and several weeks) since I walked across the stage at the Civic Auditorium in Omaha, Nebraska to accept my degree from the Midwest’s top rated private university (according to US News and World Report), Creighton University. Although I value my CU education, and still write checks to support the fine basketball team (Go Jays!), there are some things I wish I would have known then that I know now.

1. The freshman fifteen may not hit until after graduation, and then it may turn into the post-grad 40.

I wish I had gained the 15 lbs as a freshman. Then I might have been able to lose the weight when I still had a metabolism that didn’t add on five pounds after a large meal. The beer and pizza diet was completely offset by the dance every night at the clubs regime. Now if I look at a bottle of beer, it’s on my hips. If I smell the aroma of oozing, delicious mozzarella, I might as well unbutton my jeans.

2. No one cares where you got your degree, just that you got it.

I have friends who make more money than me that went to public universities. It is more important to have a well-rounded education at any school that put an Ivy League stamp on your degree. Although I value education more than anything, a Harvard-bound status either tells me that you are rich or were smart in high school, nothing about how you are in college until you prove it. Some of the most brilliant people I know were D students in high school, and they rocked the books in college. Your education is what you make of it.

3. You may not meet your future spouse in college, and that is OK.

Have fun! Discover yourself, date, and live a little. Don’t get tied down. I met my future spouse while I was in college, but we did not start dating until a few months after graduation. I was too busy having fun with all the wrong guys. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling if we would have settled down with each other before I let my hair down and dated different types of guys, I never would have realized that my type was right in front of me in the form of my best friend the whole time.

4. The dorms are the best place to live.

Readily available food on a meal plan, access to homework help, parties, hot guys, and tons of friends. I only lived in the dorms for a year, but even with all the girl drama on my floor (aka the 7^th North Army), it was a sweet deal. When I decided to get an apartment with a friend a year older than me the next year, I was faced with more grocery shopping, housework, and driving than necessary. The dorms were disguised as independence, but in reality a nice transition from home to college life.

5. Take Spanish!

I took a Spanish placement test during summer orientation, and passed it with flying colors. No required Spanish for me! If I had looked through my futuristic glasses, I would have known how valuable it would have been for me to continue to study Spanish. I have lost a lot of my Spanish, and I always encourage my students to remember that Spanish is our country’s second language, like it or not, and it is a great asset when applying for any job.

6. Some professors get off on making you miserable.

Writing “your class was a crock” (one of my senior polisci professor’s favorite phrases) on an evaluation is probably unnecessary and will only put another feather in his or her cap. Don’t sweat it, and if you decide to go into the education field, don’t repeat the pattern.

7. Some professors truly are there to help you.

College professors are much different than most high school teachers. Some faculty will be closer to your age, and although you should always maintain professional relationships, they know some of the obstacles you are going to face as a college student in and outside the classroom. After a particularly grueling break up with one of the “wrong” guys, I completely spaced off doing a theology assignment. I realized it the night before and wrote a bogus, barely researched piece about who knows what. I decided I would talk to my professor, and she was remarkably kind, letting me take an extra day to work on it after I assured her this would not happen again. And it didn’t, in her class or any other class. Empathy is hard to find, but if you are honest, you may be surprised.

Final thoughts. . .

College is an amazing experience, and although it sounds cliché, I learned more outside of the classroom than in it. Joining the newspaper staff changed my life. I made amazing friends that I still keep in touch with. I got to write about things I was passionate about like diversity on campus and local music. I also was able to go beyond my comfort zone as the assistant sports editor. Even though I don’t have an athletic bone in my body, writing about the Bluejays awakened a passion for basketball that had been tucked away since the days of Michael Jordan and World Championship Chicago Bulls. Try new things, get outside your circle, and remember . . .things are going to happen that you don’t expect.