i came back, you guys!

that’s right, two days in a row.

i’m still feeling lost, incomplete, anxious, the whole nine yards. nothing much has really changed except that i kept busy today so my brain wasn’t so over-active.

a lot of what is going on in my brain right now revolves around the idea that i lost the last, idk, say decade. i can’t think of anything i’ve accomplished, anything noteworthy, anything at all. i worked, i hung out with friends, i dated stupid boys, and i moved to california for five minutes. i’ve been in chicago for 16 or so months, but that can’t be an accomplishment? i’ve given up on school for the moment, because, as it turns out, motivation is a key performance indicator and mine was low.

i love school. it’s kind of the only thing i know how to do. research, write, critically think, ask questions. i can do all that. i have an undergraduate degree in history (i really should have just finished with an education degree.) i love history, i love learning, but that doesn’t mean i should be going to school, putting myself in even more debt that i already can’t afford.

speaking of debt, did the economy crash? because most student loans have not been paid in over a year. i was told that not paying back student debt would result in the economy crashing. hm, wonder if we can make that permanent? surely once we get these old geezers out of congress something good will happen. i can’t even say this is biden’s problem because he really is doing all he can. he’s already eliminated, what, over $10 billion in student loans, and to extremely deserving people no less.

continuing the topic of student loans, i don’t think the answer is eliminating it. i feel like that’s more like treating the symptom and not the actual illness. we have an insane student loan problem in this country. higher education costs an arm and a leg, and for what exactly? having a degree is almost a requirement in every job, like a high school diploma, and those are practically free and paid for by taxes. why can’t second education be like that?

i’m not talking about my undergraduate bachelor’s degree in history. i’m talking the first two years or an associates degree. the first two years of a four year program are all courses that don’t relate to your major or minor. they are filler classes so that you pay more money to these ridiculous schools. they are fluff, filler, redundant. i understand wanting to take a photography course or exploring political science, but when i’m taking classes that teach me about being a freshman, when it all could have been an email or included in orientation, i’m going to wonder what the heck that matters for.

the problem with student loan debt right now is that colleges and universities are charging outrageous rates for things that should really be included in our primary education. and because you just spent two years not learning about your major, you now have to cram a lot of hard work into the last two years of school, taking on things like unpaid internships, adding to the already overflowing amount of pressure.

so, like i said, eliminating everyone’s debt is not the answer. getting colleges to slow their god damn role and rewriting how things are done will help the problem enormously. no one said school works the way we’ve been doing it. in fact, i’ve been reading some things that contradict our entire educational system. there is no reason to start schooling kids at 8am. the curriculum? ha. testing? don’t even get me started. our educational system has been an experiment at best and it’s failing. clearly. just go outside and see for yourself: our education system has failed us.

i didn’t really set out to talk about that today, yet somehow that’s where i ended up. literally the story of my life as i type this from chicago, a place i never once thought i’d live. i’m passionate about a lot of things, and i think that makes me figuring out what to do next so difficult.

i am glad to be here, though.