|
The College Years (Chapter 3)
By Vader
THE COLLEGE YEARS
Entry I: The Beginning
Continued from Chapter 2 . . .
CHAPTER 3
May turned to June, heralding the start of summer – a time when going to the beach and hanging out in the sun naturally became the pastime for those in southern California. That month seemed to last just five minutes, July coming right at its heels, which, in turn, felt crunched into an even shorter period. The first week of August was the only time all summer when things seemed to happen in real time, for whatever reason, and afterwards, everything sped up again. It was as if time itself was shoving me towards September before I was even ready.
The days became shorter, the weather became cooler, and the leaves on some of the trees were just barely starting to turn brown. By the end of the season, I felt like 3 months of my life had been wasted. It had gone by so quick, I barely had time to do a thing, and now, without a satisfying final goodbye to my previous life, I was on the threshold of a new one that didn’t seem nearly as welcoming.
The time came for me to choose which college I would attend, what my major would be, which classes I would take and when. This was a tedious task I felt compelled to take my time on. One of the most difficult decisions was choosing what exactly I would want for my career – this would affect the rest of my life and I had to decide by August 18th. It didn’t seem reasonable, and caused me loads of aggravation. It’s like a person being randomly chosen on the street and told to quickly pick another in the area to propose marriage to before 2 minutes are up.
Before I knew it, the ticking of clocks grabbed me by the wrist and pushed me to Mesa for my first visit ever, and a meeting with a councilor.
When first arriving at the college, the most noticeable thing was the massive 4-story Library that stood like a battleship over the expansive parking lot on the bottom of a gorge. When looking up at it, the windows seemed to form eyes that stared down upon me like I was totally uninvited. I ignored the feeling that couldn’t be described as anything else but weird, and walked across the black sulfur to step into a concrete courtyard, which contained three different buildings and a spine-like stairway that led up towards the top of the mesa, where all classrooms were located.
A giant line of students, all appearing to be around twenty years old, composed of whites, blacks, and Asians, led inside one of the taller buildings. I stepped into the back of the formation; feeling totally disoriented and out of place, like a 3 year old in a room full of 40 year olds would feel. I imagined that everyone was glaring at me, wondering why I looked so young and why I was here.
For the next hour, I awaited, until finally, I was assigned a councilor – a chubby man in a loud Hawaiian shirt with pure white hair and beard. His glasses looked like they would be the first things to be struck by a lightning bolt if he were outside in a rainstorm. “John? My name’s Herald!” he smiled, causing the bushy hairs on his chin to furl backward.
“John is my birth-name, I always use it to sign up for classes, but please call me Jack. That’s what everyone calls me – it’s my nickname,” I replied, doing my best to sound nice while still being uncomfortable.
“John . . . Jack! I’ll just call you J.J., hee hee!” I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d rolled my eyes without trying.
“No, that’s alright, just call me Jack,” I chuckled unconvincingly.
“Nice to meet you! Follow me,” he replied, after shaking my hand. He turned to walk down a long hallway and enter his office (which felt more like a closet) at the end of the hallway. Inside was two bookshelves, jam packed with magazines and other sorts of literature, walls completely plastered over with posters, each so drastically different from each other it didn’t make sense. He presented a chair for me to sit in. I didn’t even understand at the time where on earth he could have gotten it from, because of the overwhelming clutter. Looking back, I’ve come to the conclusion he pulled it out of his ass like a magician.
“So, Jack, tell me your goals for your schooling here,” he invited.
“Well, since two of my favorite hobbies are writing and designing logos, I chose to major in graphic arts, and minor in journalism. I found that most of the classes that need to be taken to achieve this are only taught at City College - you know, Downtown. Just for the sake of having variety, I made up my mind to come here in my first year, to take all of my basic classes, and switch to City College next year to attend the rest,” I replied, doing my best to sound somewhat distinguished to make a good impression.
“Hmm, I see. Well what classes are you interested in taking up here then?”
“I figured I’d start of with Algebra, English, and P.E. That’s only 9 units though, and I want to take 12.”
“Oh what a wonderful opportunity!” the councilor declared as if he thought it were the second coming.
“What?” I said unintentionally warily.
“You can take Personal Growth!” That name sounded like something a crackpot thought up.
“Huh?”
“Personal Growth is a class we recommend to all the first-time students here. It helps you in achieving all of the goals in your plan, to become a better student and a better person. I highly suggest it.”
“Well,” I wasn’t sure what to say, “it sure sounds . . . interesting.”
“You won’t regret taking it, J.J!” Damn it
“I guarantee it will help you immensely in your time here,” he gave a grin from ear to ear.
“Well, if you say all the students are told to take it, I guess I will. Thanks for the info, Herald,” I told him in an effort to end the meeting.
“No problem. From now on, we are your home. We’re here for you whenever you need us, buddy,” he assured me, shaking my hand one more time. While I’m sure he meant well, it had the completely opposite effect on me than that of the intended one.
***
The blazing, hot orange sun dipped through thin, grey clouds that lined the horizon and engulfed itself in the blue water that spanned into oblivion. I sat in the sand, all alone, separate from the bond fire I was attending with all my friends, staring blankly at the scenery, which seemed to symbolize the fact that it was the evening of September 2nd, and that tomorrow was the oncoming of the subject of all my worries. I felt like my world was wrapped up in that giant star in the distance, collapsing until it could no longer be seen again.
“Hey,” came a sweet sounding voice that was both caring and serene, as beautiful and melodic as the sunset itself. I turned to see Rachel in a bathing suit, a towel wrapped around her waist coming up to me, a cup of hot cocoa in her hands. “Why don’t you come back to the group?”
I sighed and closed my eyes for a moment. “I don’t feel like it.” After she stood there for a little while longer, she took the opportunity to sit herself down next to me. “I’m glad you’re here . . .” I whispered, opening my eyelids yet again to see her gently smiling.
“I’m glad you’re here too,” she told me, sounding genuine, taking a sip of her drink right after. “Worried about tomorrow, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. I came here to have a good time . . . to just forget all of it . . . . . but I can’t.”
“Jack, it won’t be that bad,” she made an effort to sound upbeat. “I’m sure you’ll do well there, and I know you can make new frie-”
“I don’t want to have to make new friends, only to not see them ever again after the semester’s over,” I cut her off sharply. “I want to be with the people I like now.” She was silent, just listening and watching. I sighed once more, shaking my head. “I’m sorry,” I told her truthfully, running my fingers through my hair. “You probably don’t realize how much I don’t want to do this.”
“Yes, I do. When I moved here from Texas, I hated to leave the place I knew so well. I would have done anything to stay, but I knew that it was important to come here, since my parents wanted to be with their family again. So I suppressed my feelings and came.” She paused, in deep thought, and then busted out with a small chuckle. “Following that, I met you. Remember how much we used to argue back then?” Her amusement was contagious.
“Yeah. Stupid, huh?”
“All little boys and s do that, though. I remember how much you loved to write your own little picture books. You did it all by hand, getting every word right, and coloring every picture as perfectly as you could. And then you wrote that script, and gave it to me and Sean so we could shoot a movie.”
I started to laugh. “You’re making me embarrassed.”
“Why should you be embarrassed? It was cute!”
“Not really.” She tisked.
“You’re really in a bad mood today. Lighten up, college boy!” she teased, picking up tiny bit of sand from the beach, letting it sift through her fingers and into my hair.
“Hey!” I smiled. Taking the drink out her hand, I poured it into her hair in playful retaliation. She pretended to be shocked by gasping, staring at me with a mischievous grin.
“You’d better run now, boy!” We both jumped up, running down the beach after each other. She bumped into me, and shoved me towards the water, causing me to trip and fall into the ocean. Both of us heightened our level of laugher as she lunged and landed on top of me, getting us both completely soaked. Together, we lay there next to each other as the sun behind us completely disappeared, and the moon and stars reflected into each others eyes. Rachel held back her laugher for a moment and touched my hand.
“Just remember this Jack – tomorrow, you’re starting out a new phase of your life. But we’ll still be with you, whenever you need help. I’ll always still be with you.”
(More to come . . .)
12/12/2002 12:11:53 AM
(Updated: 12/12/2002 10:05:14 AM)
Comment on this fan fiction!
|
|
|
