Current status: To Be Determined.

1st January, 2024:

Notes app:

My goals for 2024-

Okay! New year, new me. Time to write down some goals and resolutions this year. I want this year to be adventurous, exhilarating, like reaching the summit of  an incredibly tall peak. I want it to feel fulfilling, like I am meant to be here, like the missing piece of a puzzle. 

1. Get good grades (preferably A’s but A- will also suffice)
2. Participate in class ( ask smart questions but also don’t be afraid to ask dumb ones, as long as they are not too dumb)
3. Get a boyfriend

No, I’ve been told that first year boyfriends never last. And plus, I attract, not chase. I’ll keep that for my next year’s goals. 

4) Be part of a friend group (not too big, not too small, like FRIENDS, you know?)

5) Be a part of the prestigious clubs (and be a valuable member so that next year you can apply for head)

6) Dean’s list? 

I think these should be enough. Wow! I’m feeling terribly motivated, like I could discover a whole new theory. But no, don’t get too ahead of yourself. There’s a long way to go. 

1st November, 2024:

Notes app: 

Current status:

Well, it is officially the third month of my semester here and I must say, things are not going as planned…

Orientation week was real fun, I made new friends, explored the campus, stayed up till 3 and 4am (which was quite a new for me considering my usual routine of lights out by 11pm). Everything was going well, I felt hopeful and excited and academically charged for the new semester. And then…it slapped me in the face.

It didn’t happen all at once, rather a slow and gradual breakdown of what might be called ‘My Life’. 

It started with the classes. They were really good at first, I got the best professors in the courses of my choice. The first day of class I woke up at 6am to get ready. I remember vividly that I couldn’t sleep at night because of the excitement of actually getting to take college classes. I’d always wanted to learn in this way, where you were allowed to think and contemplate and apply what you’ve learnt to real life situations. I wanted to exercise my brain, and not just in the rote learning aspect but also in the thinking aspect. At least it would give my brain a purpose more than just absorbing and puking out whole textbooks full of information. 

And it did go well… for a while. But the thing is, when you spend all your life learning only one way to study things, it’s quite difficult to then completely change it AND get used to this new way of learning. That too along with the other numerous, and might I add taxing, aspects of adulting that is thrusted upon you, all within the span of 3 months. They teach you how to learn, not unlearn. And then they expect you to write brilliant analytical research papers on a topic you could not finish the reading of because you don’t know how to read a 100 page book on Marxism within the span of just one and a half day and understand and analyse it so that you can make intellectual and contributive comments to the class discussion. 

And the worst part is, there are some people who do all of this and somehow still manage to speak so eloquently in class and have impressive debates with the professor. I marvel at those people, who seem to have already mastered the art of ‘colleging’. They have this charisma to them that somehow I thought I would have when I came to college. I see this hunger to learn in them which seems to be dwindling in me. 

But I don’t want it to.

Which brings me to my next woe: public speaking. (Ugh just typing that down gave me shivers)

Public speaking has never been my forte. I’m more of a behind-the scenes-writing-your-thoughts-down kind of person. But don’t ask me to speak in a 100 person class. I am most definitely going to imagine the worst: that they are a pack of hungry wolves, ready to attack at one tiny wrong thing I might say, or just a bunch of eyes, bulging, unblinking like staring at the climax of a thriller movie, only when then listen to what I say, the eyes contort into a sort of disgusted look, unbothered, but judgemental. In reality, no one might care, but, as John Milton once said, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven…”

He was so clearly an introverted college student talking about public speaking about Marx in an EPS class. 

But that’s just academics. There’s another, scary, frightening and mind-bogglingly horrifying thing I am yet to mention- Socialisation. (Someone in the background just screamed as I wrote that last word. Coincidence? I think not)

You know when I wrote about my perfect friend group being like that from the TV show FRIENDS? Yeah, that’s not happening any time soon. At least not for me. Many people have already seemed to have found their friend group, their best friends, the ones they will stick to till the end of their lives. And yes, while I am not completely friendless, deep down, I envy that friendship, however good or bad it may be in reality. And you know what irks me more? When I tell anyone about this, their first response is, “Oh it’s only been three months. Some people don’t find their group till their third year.” Yes but you did, didn’t you? Why is it that I have to wait for three years to find a good friend group, while you’re already enjoying your time travelling to the city, going for lunch, pulling all nighters and swimming through life hand in hand, while I am barely managing to stay afloat?

This is not what I had in mind when I imagined college all these years. And maybe I had built up this extravagant idea of college in my head where everything was picture perfect and things were going exactly the way I wanted it to, but is it wrong to hope? Right now, I feel lost. The road to where I want to go seems hazy and not because of the pollution. It pains me to see others around me doing well, versions of themselves that I wished to be 11 months ago because I am nowhere near that. I feel like the dumbest person in a class full of the smartest people in the world. 

Everyone says that it’s just a transition period and that things will get better soon, but I don’t see it. I don’t see even a speck of evidence that things will get better. And believe me, I’ve looked.

And yet…I’m swimming. 

1st August, 2025:

Notes app: 

Current status: To Be Determined…

• academics
• ashoka
• ASHOKA UNIVERSITY
• college
• friends
• life
• mental health