col·lege

A few demotivaters...

Achievement: You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor.

Adversity: That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.

Overconfidence: Before you attempt to beat the odds, be sure you could survive the odds beating you.

( www.despair.com )

Classes can be summed up in the word: intense. College is a torture chamber for the motivated and driven, and a late night bar and dance club for those who aren't.

For the past two years I have drifted through college, making decent (or good by some standards) grades overall, dreams and ideas morphing, evolving, floating. But now, every grade that I make, every quiz, every homework assignment, every test, every lab, is a stamp of passage or failure. It's like watching the play-by-play on ESPN in comparison to seeing the final score. It's painful, it's stressful, it's intense. And it's pretty dodgy on the heart. There is no big picture in the moment, there are merely errors, strike-outs, and occasionally honest hits.

I've never felt so directed and lucid as to what I want to do with my life. I have drive, motivation, and dreams.

But I've also never been this afraid of failure. When thinking about majors and careers, I have always tried to choose the major with the most career options. If one thing doesn't work out, something else will. But right now, its a pass-fail class. You either make it, or you don't. There is no half-way, or other option. If it doesn't work out..then what? It's the difference between being a kindergarten teacher (God bless them) and performing complicated surgeries on a premature infant so that he/she can live to see kindergarten.

There is no other option but to pass. Or so I keep telling myself.

- caroline singletary parker