Not So Relevant

Uck her miserable mood is so infectious sometimes. I wonder how my experience here would be different if I had a different roommate - it would undoubtedly be, well, different. But I'm realizing more and more that I actually do live with her, instead of just randomly sleeping in the same room. She's part of my life now, but she's one of those parts that you kind of groan at when you think about it. It's crazy that we really don't know all that much about each other - well maybe I know a lot about her personal life since she has no concept of that thing called privacy, but she really doesn't know much about me.

But that's not all my fault - after what, 7 months, I acknowledge that she really doesn't care all that much about me. I guess it's asking a lot to assume that she should, because other than the fact that we live with each other, we have no need to be close (ironic?). Maybe that's what really gets me about her, that she could care less about what I'm feeling or what's going on in my life. I wonder how she even sees me, maybe as that person who comes into the room at random times and does something and then goes to sleep? It's not like I'm an invisible person, and I do talk to her and make an effort, but she doesn't hear it unless it's about her or concerning her. The only thank-you's I've ever gotten from her are for helping her understand something for bio or chem - I guess that gives a pretty good analysis of how she sees me. She would take notice of me more if she knew my grades in the classes we share, but not in a good way - I'm pretty sure she'd hate me because I don't kill myself over the work and actually seem to like learning. She fascinating to me in the sense that rarely do you meet someone who's staring so blindly at a wall, not seeing what else is going on around her. I know that the more I attempt to describe her, the more insulting and malicious my words seem, but for once the truth really is that merciless.

Why is that such a crazy concept, anyway, loving learning? People roll their eyes whenever I mention that I actually like going to class and doing work if I'm interested. Maybe I'll be lucky to end up somewhere where everyone else feels the same - I was reading in the library today and realized that of the three computer screens I could see near me, all of them were focused on IM conversations instead of websites or Word documents. Seriously, people wonder why they spend so much time working? Because they don't actually work, duh. It made me want to laugh, because here I was doing what I considered some light reading of W.E.B. Du Bois (any work for something other than bio or chem is now "light" work for us, we realized), enjoying not having much work to do while everyone else stressed out about God knows what, their freshman writing seminar papers or something. And I wondered if it's like this everywhere - is learning really work everywhere? Hey, I totally understand wanting to have fun and have other things that are just as (if not more) important than working, but whatever, since when is it a chore? And why do they have to be such opposites?

Whatever, I already know I'm the college kid who missed the boat because I've never been drunk here and I'd rather spend my money on train tickets than beer. I'm beyond caring anyway - I assume all that comes when you like where you are and who you're with and you're in a mood to have fun all the time. That is something I'm definitely missing out on, but I'm also kind of glad that I got to do this first, the whole be a nerd and work your ass off thing. Hopefully I'll learn how to have fun again next year, and then maybe I'll look at this and say wow, what a loser, but maybe by that point I'll feel some love from whoever I'm rooming with and things'll be different. Just maybe, that's all.