*I took my first ever college midterm today, meaning I'm halfway through the semester; meaning I'm a quarter way through my first year; meaning I'm 1/16th done with college. For those of you asking how it's going:* I often find myself thinking, more than anything else, "*so this is it?*". From an etic perspective, I think I'm doing well in college. I say hi to lots of different people, some people say hi back; I eat relatively healthy; I sleep enough; I attend office hours; I'm doing well in my classes, which are largely small and generally interesting. I keep in touch with old friends, call my parents at regular intervals, walk often, look at morning sunlight, drink enough water, and keep up a supplement regime. I work out five times a week, I run at a slightly lesser frequency. I've largely avoided the weed-outs, the gen-eds, and the freshman traps. I joined clubs I was interested in, all of which are novel activities. I practice my languages consistently and hang out with Chinese people occasionally. My room is clean, comfortable, and decorated. I still don't know what I want to study, but I like not knowing. I don't procrastinate as badly as I did in high school. Still, it's become apparent that I'm not really *happy*. I buy a lot of stuff I don't really need & lounge around in nicely decorated places partially to escape the aesthetic of college. While the work usually gets done, the prospect of another hour-work block in some nondescript corner of Davis usually destroys my soul a little bit. In short, I think I dread normalcy. I miss spontaneity that is unconstrained by the boundaries of campus; little adventures that don't feel fruitless. I haven't been sedentary — I went to Atlanta, and the lake, and the beach, all of which were trips that were planned in a very short amount of time. ~ The obvious answer is that this is a harsh cold turkey effect from the excitement that defined my gap year. Another possible answer is that no amount of unavoidable responsibility is enjoyable or exciting. These are comforting ideas, and certainly ones I'd like to believe in: they communicate that there's nothing abnormal about my situation, that with more adjustment everything will be okay. I'm scared of the case in which these theories aren't true. It's not as if I was going into college blind to the mundaneness and routine: in fact, I might've known too *much* about college. I'd been watching day in the life videos and college reactions far before I had a life or a college acceptance letter. I lived for a few weeks in different college towns, helped my friends with their assignments, and read books about how to succeed in college. While there is separation between my impression and my experience, I didn't expect this degree of separation. Back in grade 9, I had an idea of what life would look like if I did what I wanted to do in high school. I wrote those ideas down and pinned them to my desk. Almost every day, I would look at the yellow paper and feel guilty about my lack of progress towards any of the goals, until I just stopped worrying about it. While the path winded much more than I thought, and I actually put in much less gritty determination than I should've, I lucked into checking off basically every item on the list. This is to say: I know things are meant to feel slow, that things take time, that part of life is to relax and know everything works out. Still, I don't know. ~ Speaking of still: the local club at UNC, Still Life, is colloquially called Still. When I was last a freshman, part of the appeal of college was finally being an adult, one that can choose to eat whenever & go wherever & stay out with whoever. Work focused during the day, go out to something like Still Life at night, do interesting extracurriculars, etc. College seemed simple to get right. With this element of my life, freshman me would be cheering as well; green with envy. We got the frat bid, the weekly nights out, the prestigious university program. I'm the one who gets to live it: the sunny blue Carolina skies lifting my thoughts as I leisurely walk across an idyllic green quad, the finally-functional Apple gadgets for "educational" purposes, the new people I get to meet every day. I literally live above a state-of-the-art gaming room, which might have imploded 11-year-old-me, whose heart beat just looking at pictures of Razer mice. Still. --- Part of college is about meeting a lot of people in a pretty shallow way — where are you from, what are you studying, oh you know so-and-so, etc — and part of me craves, on some level, a conversation that extends beyond basic biography. Societal custom demands some time in between. I've had a few notable conversations recently. One with an old teacher, Denise, who taught me everything I know now, and whom I've been trying to reach for eight years. One with a somewhat prolific Indian author and activist. One with our residence hall's housekeeper, Hannynei. Denise told me about her travels. The author told me about her writing process. Hannynei told me about her daily routine, one that is equal parts academic, labour, and familial. She said she was proud of me for being so far from home. I think often about how my life, at one point, may resemble each of these in turn. ~ Life is good, to be clear. I lived an abnormal one, now I live a somewhat more conventional one. I live in material comfort, with enough room (financially, socially) to escape on weekends. I love Chapel Hill, I truly do. I continue to read Substacks of people I hardly interact with. Who I read has changed, yet the act of knowing almost every biographical detail of distant acquaintances hasn't. I once spoke to a friend about "blog theory" — how I often felt more attached/attracted to the strangers whose writing I read than the real people around me. Everyone I know well has invariably seemed beautiful to me, and I think this theory derives from that. Society is quick to label desire; I've always felt more like an admirer. Particularly of writing. I wish more were sent to me, to interrupt the stream of normalcy, to allow for an experience less common to others & less common to previous days; to rekindle the admiration & love that I thought would be inherent to college, to life; what I now realise is more of toil than inherence. I love it here. So far. So good. So common.