I'll Have History With A Side Of Swimming, But No Dance

......So I've been neglecting the blog. Ooops. But to be completely honest, I don't think I've ever had a busier semester. The classes I am taking are not that much harder than any of the other classes I've taken here (to tell you the truth, they might even be easier), but just as I suspected, writing a senior thesis is draining the life from my body. ....Okay, so that's a bit of a stretch, but only a bit.

I really want to do well on my thesis and so far I'd say it's coming along. But that also means that any free hour I have is spent working on my thesis and I basically have no free time left--weekday or weekend. I took off last Thursday night and Saturday night for hanging out with a friend/the campus Halloween Party (whooo!), but I really haven't had any time to just chill out and watch a movie or just do nothing. I'm like a hamster on a wheel...although much less fuzzy.

And now that I am back from October Break, it's time to start picking classes for next semester. Crazy, I know. FYI: Please don't remind me that this is the last time I get to fill in my little online sheet and constantly change my mind on courses and rearrange the order of the classes that are the most important for me to take--unless you want to make me cry. But on a more optimistic note, I'm pretty excited for my next selection of courses and I think that if everything goes according to plan, I can leave Vassar feeling fully satisfied.

One thing that I do not plan on taking again is dance. For the past three years, I have taken a dance course about every other semester. I took two course from modern dance, and right now I'm working on taking a jazz dance class. Actually, I take that back--I'm working on SURVIVING a jazz dance class. Why? Because I am the world's worst dancer. The title isn't exactly flattering, but trust me--I'd rather have that title than be forced to watch myself dance. When I was taking modern dance, I wasn't exactly good, but at least it wasn't painful to watch. But jazz dance on the other hand.... well, that's another story.

I'm a pretty athletic individual and I swam for six years between middle school and high school. But as soon as I step onto the dance floor, it looks as if I'm just learning how to walk as I stumble into what is supposed to be an arabesque but ends up looking like I tripped over an invisible staircase. I think most of the time the instructor tries to ignore me because if we spent the entire class going over what I did wrong, I don't think we'd get past the first exercise. Instead, she'll instruct those in the group who look like professionals in comparison as I sort of hobble along and make a sad attempt at what is supposed to be a dance move whenever I feel like it's safe to humiliate myself again.

Now, everyone has their on-days and their off-days, and you're all probably thinking that I just had an off-day today. But compared to the average person, my on-days are like off-days and my off-days are, well, extra-off if anything. It doesn't help my case that I had virtually no dance training as a child and my classmates seem like they've at least taken some form of classical dance. I'm pretty certain that the rugby player in my class decided to take it as a joke, but I end up making him look like John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever. When I walk into Kenyon Hall on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'm not walking into my dance class, I’m walking into my own worst nightmare--where all eyes are on me as I trip over myself while trying to doing twirls across the room, saying as if I were Derek Zoolander: "I can't turn left!" What's even more humiliating is that my mom was a dance instructor at a studio in Cleveland when she was about my age, and performed shows at discos back when they were cool. But somehow I was born with two left feet and I have no idea where they came from; a recessive trait, perhaps? I'll never know for sure.

So right now you're probably thinking, "So why do you keep putting yourself through this if you think it's comparable to torture?" Good question. As a Vassar student, I guess I'm kind of masochistic by nature. But as myself... well, you could say I'm probably crazy.

The Saga Begins

Quite possibly, the question I most frequently ask myself is, "What do I want to do with my life?" For years, I've tried to figure it out myself. When I was in high school, I entered the school's pre-med program thinking that "I'm a smart person. Maybe I should be a doctor." Then I found out that I don't possess a lot of skills that doctors possess, such as people skills. And "looking at blood" skills. Eww. And knowing me, I'd be the doctor with a really twisted sense of humor who accidentally makes a joke about false teeth while roaming around in the geriatric department; needless to say, medicine was ruled out pretty quickly.

Since then I've explored everything from law to scientific research, then somehow landed in College Relations here at Vassar. While I enjoy many aspects of my job here, I've learned that I'm not exactly skilled when it comes to general office tasks. Even with 7 months of work experience, I still can't properly answer a phone and frequently get in fights with the copy machine. And as I frequently repeat at the expense of my fellow student workers, "I wasn't cut out for this life. Sigh."

After summer internships in journalism, television writing, and, finally, blogging, I'm starting to get a sense of what I like, but barely. You'd think that by being myself I'd know myself, but somehow other people tend to know me better than I do--if that makes any sense. By taking the advice of a few alum friends who recommended the Vassar Career Development Office (and also happen to have jobs), last week I finally admitted defeat and decided to give it a shot.

The nice lady who works at the Career Development Office (or CDO) desk set me up for an appointment that actually occurred this week. In order to prepare, I had to fill out a yellow form stating my problem, interests, thoughts about the future, and barriers in my future planning. I wasn't quite sure what the answers to these questions were so I had to ask for help, which kind of made me feel like I was cheating on a test. "Psst, [Inserts friend's name here], what's the answer to number four?" "Only you know that," said my boyfriend in an annoyed voice. Eventually, I came up with a few answers, a couple of my interests being ukulele, the food network, and kayaking-none of which seemed very career related, unless somehow I could make a living as a ukulele-playing kayaker with a cooking show, but I'm pretty sure there's no market for that yet.

As soon as I entered my career counselors office, it was as if I had suddenly developed amnesia. I had no idea why I was there (the same type of confusion I experienced before taking the SAT) or what my questions were, which is exactly what she wanted to know. I spat out a really general answer, something along the lines of, "I don't know where to start," to which she said, "How about with your major?"

To be honest, I don't know what I like about Sociology, which is exactly what I told her. It just seemed right to me, which is the way most things are. I can't define my interests on paper, but I can tell what feels natural.

Like classes, for instance. Trying a different approach to pinpoint my interests, she asks, "Can you name your favorite classes at Vassar?"

I knew this question wouldn't be the answer to my problem, mainly because my favorite classes have all been so different. As far as my top three go, I'd have to say my German Studies freshman course called "Vampires, Lunatics, and Cyborgs," Relativity (a physics course), and Drugs, Culture, and Society (compliments of the Sociology department-> highly recommended!). Liberal Arts school-1; CDO-0.

Now, I don't know if this is true or if she was just trying to make me feel better about myself, but she said my issue was common and most people don't know what they want to do with the rest of their lives when they're in college. (Which maybe explains why my three best friends know exactly what they want to pursue? For the sake of my nerves, I'll assume I have some really odd friends.)

My counselor directed me to a few websites provided by the CDO giving career advice and information. One of them is called "Vault," which is a really helpful website in terms of information about fields and matching careers with personality types. Unfortunately, every time I saw a career that seemed to fit my personality type, I also saw that these careers were not for people with traits such as "disorganized" or "procrastinator," which pretty much rules them out.

Another service offered by the CDO that I'm curious to try is called V-Net. V-Net is a networking tool (hence the name) that students can use to get in touch with Alums who have volunteered to act as career mentors. For example, you can search for someone in a specific place, field, or, who graduated with the same degree that you are pursuing, then find out what they do now and contact them. By contacting them, they will hopefully answer questions about their field and encourage networking with other people in the field that interests you. As my career counselor said, it's not uncommon for students to find a job through V-Net with mentors they find online-that is, if the career interests you.

I'm scheduled to take a personality test next week, which sounds really interesting (if they can give me any answers, I'll assume they use magic), as well as a follow up meeting with a careers counselor, who will be able to give me more information and guidance based on my answers from the personality test.

I haven't made too much progress in my career search yet, but maybe with some luck (and perhaps a bit of fairy dust) I'll be able to name some career relevant interests by the time I graduate.... then all I need to do is find a job.

"No Golf For You!"

I have golfed on several occasions in the past, but I wouldn't consider myself a golfer. However, for the first time ever, I decided that maybe I'd take advantage of the low, $2 student price at the golf course and play nine holes with a friend. So after work Friday afternoon, my friend and I set out for the Vassar Golf Course, expecting to play a casual game and have fun. Well, having fun was poor anticipation on my part. As soon as we walked into the clubhouse to arrange a tee time, I knew that Friday was not my day for golf. "Excuse me?" the club manager retorted in disgust after I said that we were there to play golf. "Well, then you will need to change. I'd prefer that you wear a collared shirt, and no cut-offs," he said, pointing at my khaki shorts, which were quite clearly not cutoffs. I could hardly believe my ears. I've heard of golf courses having dress codes, but for a college course, especially Vassar, it seemed really strict. I definitely didn't see that one coming. Dress codes go against everything Vassar stands for, such as creativity and self-expression. In fact, compared to many of my classmates, I'd say that I dress pretty conservatively; and there was the club manager, staring at me as if I were naked. At that point, I decided that the Vassar Golf Course was no longer worth my time or my $2, and my friend and I left in a huff, certain that mini-golf was a better idea.

Considering my lack of golf skills, I'd consider myself a pretty skilled putter. After being denied a tee-time at the Vassar Golf Course, we went to a pretty large course on Route 9 in Wappinger Falls called "Fun Central," and it was at that point when I realized what normal Poughkeepsie families do on the weekends, and the answer is not "putt-putt." In fact, I think I discovered the key to child obesity when I noticed the huge number of kids inside playing video games as opposed to the few outside playing putt-putt. At one point, a little girl walked outside onto the mini-golf course and indicated to her father that she wanted to play. "No, you don't want to play that," he said, "Come back inside and play video games!" At that moment I felt like an undercover sociologist studying American family dynamics in relation to physical health. Spending a majority of four years of your life reading sociological texts will do that to you.

In order to end the day more successfully than it had started, an evening movie screening seemed like a safe bet. The great thing about Vassar is the ease with which you can hold your own private film screening. My friend and I went to Rockefeller Hall, and, finding Rocky 200 (one of few lecture halls on campus) unoccupied, we closed the shades, turned on the DVD projector, and brought "Some Like It Hot" back to the big-screen. Of course, my description makes it sound a lot easier than it actually was. At one point I was so frustrated that I called my boyfriend and asked him how the projector worked, and he replied, "How do you expect me to help you from 1000 miles away?!" But lo and behold, I eventually figured it out. While I was denied the ability to play golf on the Vassar course, it all seemed to even out after I figured out how to get both the sound and the picture to play at the same time.

As an end note, today marks exactly one month until classes start, three weeks until students come to campus, and two weeks until I get to move into my TA. Hold tight! A packing list is on the way....