My Freshman Year at USC: Bits and Bobs and Lessons Learned

You've seen the videos, you know all about my first semester. You know about band, about Chicago, about my Russian classes and my crazy film professor. You don't know about my failed friendships and failed relationship and the heartbreak that ensued, but hey, I was trying to focus on the positive things, don't hate me for that.

And my second semester? Well, you've seen my One Second(ish) a Day video, I assume. You've read about my classes, about my adventures as a script supervisor and all that, and you know a lot about everything else that happened from my 19 Things post. (Yes, this paragraph is solely dedicated to my shameless plugs. Deal with it.)

So...what is this post about? It's filling in the gaps. It's bits and bobs and lessons learned. And it's long, but bear with me (I put the most important bits in bold, for all you people out there who don;t like to read. But shame on you). It begins with...

#1 Friendships 

Oh dear, touchy subject. You see, I've never been A+ when it comes to making friends, and most of my friendships from my first semester seemed to disappear into thin air. Sort of. As it stands, all the people I thought I was going to be friends with -- mostly film people -- I ended up not being friends with. And all the people I was actually friends with, who I had classes with, I drifted apart from. And this is a completely normal phenomenon your freshman year: if you don't make an effort to see someone regularly, you find yourself somehow no longer being friends with them. And you can either try to reconnect, or accept that, move on, and make new friends.

However, I was suffering from a serious case of self-doubt and self-hatred and low self-esteem my second semester, due to aforementioned heartbreak, which meant that I began consciously avoiding certain people, because I felt like I wasn't good enough to hang out with them. Which is stupid, but hey, it happens. And then other people I simply could not bring myself to hang out with, because they reminded me of said heartbreak. So that sucked, and people were hurt and people I cared about avoided me while I avoided them and it got to the point where I was too afraid to leave my room to go down to eat. And that was not cool and I realized that something had to change.

Since just because I was hurt, I couldn't shut myself out and feel sorry for myself. I wasn't even upset with the person who hurt me, I just wanted to be his friend again but was too afraid to tell him/do something about it, because I thought I'd be let down again. And on top of all, my self-pity made me a negative presence I didn't want to be, and made me not appreciate all the friends I had enough. And now that I think about it, I do have quite a few friends.

With no band in the spring, those instant 27 friends weren't there. That, however, made me realize who my true band friends really were. Those who I spent time with anyway, and am talking to even now, over the summer, even though we are an ocean apart.

And then, all my CON friends. Spending days and nights together with some people can result in some great friendships and great times, y'all, and I feel like the amazing time I had with the people on CON saved me from an impending breakdown, and I'm forever grateful to my CON people for that.

And then there are the people who don't fit into categories. My Koala Kween Disney girls (so much <3), my RA, my film school friends and all my friends I met in class are all people whom I appreciate and love so much, even though I'm pretty sure I was just a cloud of negativity around them.

So yeah, you know who you are. Love you all.

Tl;dr: It's OK if some of your initial friendships don't work out, as long as you make new ones. Don't get caught up eulogizing friendships that weren't meant to be, just move on. They didn't last for a reason. Also, don't take your friendships for granted, as no one is doing you a favor by being your friend. Appreciate everyone and try to be a positive presence (by thinking positively, don't fake it). And please, don't avoid anyone because they remind you of someone else. Move past that and make new memories with them (clichééé but true).

#2 My Roommate

Moving in with someone you barely know is not easy, and living with me is particularly difficult, but she did the best she could, and I love her for that. I could have done a lot better, but like I said, I was a mess -- which is not an excuse, a lot of people are -- and I ended up putting myself first without noticing. And when you live with someone, there shouldn't be firsts and seconds. No, because we're all mad equal here. Anyway, while our first semester was fine (I think), something slipped second semester. I don't know what, but something went wrong. So, for all the people out there looking for roommate advice: Be careful your second semester. You're still living with someone, so don't get too comfortable. And make sure to communicate your problems, instead of spending a week wandering from one library to another like a vagabond, like I did (TBH, I did that because I felt that my roommate wasn't communicating with me, so I was trying to give her space. Bad idea.)

AND also: establish whether you want to be just roommates, or friends as well (and PROTIP: neither of those things equal therapist). I consider my roommate to be one of my best friends, seriously. But that meant that I often relied on her too much and annoyed her when she was trying to study and kept talking and talking and talking and shoving my problems down her throat. And since I didn't want to lose her friendship, I focused more on being a good friend than being a good roommate, meaning that I avoided certain things that would have made our roommate situation potentially more easier/functional. As it turns out, I sort of failed at both anyway, but hey, we're living together again, so I couldn't have been that bad that gives us a chance to fix what's been broken. And no, I don't mean plates by that. As we only had paper plates, OK I'm done bye. 

BTW, I'm making it seem like I had a terrible roommate situation, which I did not. I LOVE my roommate. She's the best. BUT I'm trying to focus on the drama and the lessons learned part, because the one thing I learnt from my screenwriting class is that people are interested in conflict.

#3 Relationships

See #1. Heartbreak sucks, especially when the person who breaks your heart is too good of a person to be mad at. Yup.

PROTIP: Don't fall in love with anyone who lives on your floor.

#4 The Good Side of the Bad and the Bad Side of the Good

I'm aware that my life could seem like a cakewalk to many people (well, before reading this post anyway) but I can assure you, it's nowhere near that. (Also, side note, look up the origin of that word if you don't know it). Yes, I got into my dream schools (Penn and USC SCA). Yes, I got a full scholarship from USC. I got my first choice dorm. I traveled to four different cities for free. I performed with Greatest Marching Band in the History of the Universe (Ever!). I got a 4.0 my first semester. I was selected to be an RA. I was selected to present at a research conference. I was named the "all-star script supervisor" of CON by my friend/showrunner Jen. I did well in all of my classes. Really, I should be happy and I really am. But, as it is, as hard as you try, nothing always works out the way you want it to, even if it sort of does. Confusing? Let me explain...

Case #1: When I got my RA acceptance letter, which was all I ever wanted and I was so so so happy, I was screaming with excitement (well, not literally, as I was sneakily checking my phone during Screenwriting). I met some amazing people during my Emerging RA Development. I had envisioned the perfect RA life, living in Webb Tower with my current roommate, three of my friends on my staff team (one of them being my current RA) and a wonderful group of 23 freshmen. However, one small detail I didn't consider enough was my placement, which wasn't up to me. See, I REALLY wanted Webb Tower (where I lived this year) and I REALLY wanted freshmen, and I was confident I could get both. I wanted freshmen more than I wanted Webb, though, so I was already making peace with my second and third choice placements. And so, although I was incredibly lucky and fortunate and grateful to be one of the 156 people selected to be RAs, I was disappointed to find that I was placed off-campus, with upperclassmen. And, y'know, it's not that I'm complaining. I'll be living in an apartment with a balcony and a pool outside, and one of my best friends will be my residents. But I'd been planning for freshmen all along, and I'll have a co-RA as well, who's gonna be a senior, so I'm slightly freaking out/not feeling ready/still feeling disappointed, as all my programming plans and door decs and activities were planned for freshmen, and a co-RA was never even in the equation. What if she won't like my ideas? What if she'll constantly judge me? Probably not, but it's not what I envisioned. Yet you can't always get what you want, even if you get what you want. And I should learn to be OK with that. It's going to be a different experience from the RA experience I wanted, but then, who says it's going to be worse? And who says my ideal RA experience was ever going to be more than it was -- an ideal?

Case #2: I lost my 4.0 GPA due to my Screenwriting class, which I was extremely upset by. We had exactly zero papers, midterms, finals, and quizzes, and yet I couldn't get an A. And this was partly my fault: I kind of half-assed that class. I started out way too confident, and since I considered screenwriting my forte, I was convinced that I could ace this class. Wrong. Seemingly easy classes are often deceptive, and it's often your greatest downfall when you feel that you are good at something. This is college, so don't be too confident. There will always be someone who's better than you, but that's a good thing, as it means you have something to learn. Although I didn't learn too much from my Screenwriting class, I did learn that I have a lot more to learn (cliché alert, someone call the cliché police on me). Maybe I'm not as great of a writer as I think I am. But I can be. And maybe my writing isn't what the TV industry is missing right now. But it will be.

And adding to that, don't ever strive to have a 4.0 GPA in college. Don't strive for perfection, as it will destroy you and it will make it more difficult for you to appreciate your achievements. (i.e. I should be celebrating my 3.98 instead of crying over my lost 4.0. As a 3.98 is still damn good -- also, keep in mind that I'm a film major and my classes are not graded on a curve)

Case #3: Let me say this, sometimes it's OK to be a quitter. If something -- your major, your EC, your friendship, your relationship, your job, or even your college -- is not working out, it's OK to change your mind and quit. I briefly touched on this in my breakdown of classes, but let's elaborate. It's OK to quit. That is, if you at least gave it a try.  Now, academically, this doesn't really pertain to me, except for that one time I dropped a class. The horror! But, I did consider -- and am considering -- dropping marching band. On my first day of band camp, I came up with a blog post titled "I Am a Quitter". Thankfully, I never got around to posting it. Or writing it, as a matter of fact. I stayed in band, and I couldn't be more happy that I did: I would never trade my experiences in band for anything. Yet I was am the worst Silk. I'm genuinely bad. They didn't put me in shows, they left me alone on the sidelines, and every time someone yelled 'Reserve' at me, I felt like crying. It was destroying my self-esteem, as I was trying SO hard. But I stayed and persevered, and they took me to Chicago, which was so worth it, and when they finally put me in the UCLA pregame show, I felt like it was the biggest accomplishment of my life. Honestly, it was such a big deal to me, and it made everything worth it. Yet thinking more about it, as much as I love band, I don't know if the good can outweigh the bad. And although I am planning on staying in band, I don't know if it's the right thing to do. Truth is, I'm scared of quitting. Because I love spinning flags, I love my fellow Silks, I love proudly wearing my uniform, I love traveling (for free, duh), and I do want to earn that jock jacket my junior year. But then I don't love crying by the sidelines and standing for six hours straight on game days and getting up at 5:45 am on Saturdays and running into *certain* people every other day. I don't want to quit, but sometimes, the fact that you don't want to quit doesn't mean you shouldn't and you should at least try to think rationally before overwhelming yourself. I know I'm not being that helpful here, but that's because this is the one thing I'm still struggling with as well. Band is a vicious cycle, I've heard this from other people as well: even if you hate it, you never hate it just enough to quit. So I probably won't quit band, even though I probably should.

Therefore, last but not least, my last piece of advice: learn to take your own advice. Yup. I'm gonna leave you with that.