There’s a special something about the end of the school year that always brings out the panic attack in me.
It could be the fact that half of my friends are balancing three majors and 40-hour internships, while I can barely float 13 credits. Or it could be the fact that I have to retake Italian 1004 when I’d rather eat Bigfoot’s boogers.
At the same time, I’m beginning to wonder if the truth behind my anxiety lies not in the past mistakes I’ve made, but in the realization that I only have one more year in which to improve on them. Holy crap! Aren’t you freaking out?
The thing is, I don’t care if you’re not, because that only means one thing: You’re not going to empathize with me and/or send me presents to make me feel better. This is fine, because that’s totally what moms and boyfriends are for.
However, my unflappable, successful, never-dropped-a-class-because-it-didn’t-fit-in-with-your-TV-schedule friend, I must warn you that this week my column is not for you. I know we had something special, something tender and delish that you told all your friends about in an online chat room. But this week? This week my column is for the losers – in other words, the ones who never seem to win at school. Perhaps they too, have only a year left and are wondering where all that Nintendo Wii will get them in the long run.
You know who I mean; the people who find excuses to clip their toenails instead of do homework, the hippie souls who, like Sting, just want to play in fields of gold, and the ones who find no need for tangents and logarithms or for the correct past subjunctive conjugation of the Italian verb “essere.”
Hey, I’ve been there – in fact, I’m still there and, thus, my figurative panic attack. When all the crappy adolescent magazines I used to read made it seem like all college was really about was boys ‘n’ fun, it’s hard to adjust to the way things are -which is precisely why HBO’s “Six Feet Under” saved my life.
There’s a book called “Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” That’s all fine and good if you’re the kind of person who eats Play-Doh, but that just doesn’t cut it for me. Thus, “Six Feet Under” became both the cause of, as well as solution to, all my existential problems – and potentially yours, too.
Are you feeling angry at the world, just like Claire? Just remember that time is wasted being angry, because the very person you might be angry at could get hit by a bus any minute.
Are you not close with your family, like the Fischers? Keep in mind that your family is sometimes all you have – and perhaps the only thing you need.
Bothered that you’re not doing well in school? That’s OK! You need to remember that you are the sum total of every person you meet, not every class or test you take. So laugh a little longer with your friends.
Wondering why I’m not single and yours for the taking? Because I’m too busy watching “Six Feet Under.”
Kat Hargreaves welcomes comments at [email protected].
