Anamarie's attitudes
Life Lesson: no one cares
Anamarie Miller
Issue date: 4/23/09 Section: Opinion
This week, everyone is stressed. We're all swiftly approaching the end-of-the-year meltdown. Of course, I'm no different. I'm having my fair share of conniption fits. But I learned something very important about the end of any semester my freshman year of Spanish, from a guy, since graduated.
This kid was the epitome of self-absorption, and no matter what end-of-the-semester leftovers you had on your plate, he was going to top it. If you had a paper, he had three. If you had a huge presentation you were waking up in cold sweats over, he had two of those last week.
As I spazzed about my first 7-10 page paper in a foreign language (as a freshman who cried almost every day after my 331 class), he would chuckle one of his pretentious little ha-ha's and explain to me that this was only the beginning and I had no idea what "real" work felt like. He was, in short, an ass.
But, in retrospect, it taught me a very important lesson: no one cares. Absolutely no one gives a crap. Just as the Spanish 331 guy didn't give a rat's behind about what stress I had in my life, neither does anyone else (although most people have the common courtesy to at least give you a "that sucks" or "you'll get through it").
Similarly, I didn't care about what he had to do, either. I don't care about what anyone else has to do during the last couple weeks of the semester. I've got enough going on, thanks.
I don't care about your senior recital, research paper, symposium presentation, 500-question multiple-choice exam, 20-minute presentation on the history of Indonesia, or three-hour essay exam on Monday at 8 a.m. I just don't.
Likewise, I don't expect anyone to care about the stupid things that mean something to me right now.
I'm not trying to be cruel, speaking the truth. We all moan and groan about the overwhelming amount of crap piled onto us at the end of the semester. We all have at least one professor who thinks it'll be a good time to have a 15 page paper due and still assign little busy-work assignments that manage to take up 30 minutes of your life anyway.
We all have finals that are going to blow harder than Hurricane Katrina. We all have research papers we haven't started because we were busy writing the one that was due last week. We are all in the same boat here, people.
Therefore, it is completely unnecessary (not mention annoying) to complain to someone. At best, you're going to seem like a whiney baby. At worst, you're going to seem like a pretentious ass who thinks that the amount of work you have to do in the next few days is so much more overwhelming and difficult than that of the person you're complaining to. Either way, you look like a jerk and the person who has to listen to you wants to smack you.
I guess the bottom line is this - everyone just shut up. If we all spent half the time we spend bitching actually working on the things we need to get done, we'd probably be a lot less stressed.
So suck it up... there are only a handful of days left, and we'll all survive.
amiller6@capital.edu
This kid was the epitome of self-absorption, and no matter what end-of-the-semester leftovers you had on your plate, he was going to top it. If you had a paper, he had three. If you had a huge presentation you were waking up in cold sweats over, he had two of those last week.
As I spazzed about my first 7-10 page paper in a foreign language (as a freshman who cried almost every day after my 331 class), he would chuckle one of his pretentious little ha-ha's and explain to me that this was only the beginning and I had no idea what "real" work felt like. He was, in short, an ass.
But, in retrospect, it taught me a very important lesson: no one cares. Absolutely no one gives a crap. Just as the Spanish 331 guy didn't give a rat's behind about what stress I had in my life, neither does anyone else (although most people have the common courtesy to at least give you a "that sucks" or "you'll get through it").
Similarly, I didn't care about what he had to do, either. I don't care about what anyone else has to do during the last couple weeks of the semester. I've got enough going on, thanks.
I don't care about your senior recital, research paper, symposium presentation, 500-question multiple-choice exam, 20-minute presentation on the history of Indonesia, or three-hour essay exam on Monday at 8 a.m. I just don't.
Likewise, I don't expect anyone to care about the stupid things that mean something to me right now.
I'm not trying to be cruel, speaking the truth. We all moan and groan about the overwhelming amount of crap piled onto us at the end of the semester. We all have at least one professor who thinks it'll be a good time to have a 15 page paper due and still assign little busy-work assignments that manage to take up 30 minutes of your life anyway.
We all have finals that are going to blow harder than Hurricane Katrina. We all have research papers we haven't started because we were busy writing the one that was due last week. We are all in the same boat here, people.
Therefore, it is completely unnecessary (not mention annoying) to complain to someone. At best, you're going to seem like a whiney baby. At worst, you're going to seem like a pretentious ass who thinks that the amount of work you have to do in the next few days is so much more overwhelming and difficult than that of the person you're complaining to. Either way, you look like a jerk and the person who has to listen to you wants to smack you.
I guess the bottom line is this - everyone just shut up. If we all spent half the time we spend bitching actually working on the things we need to get done, we'd probably be a lot less stressed.
So suck it up... there are only a handful of days left, and we'll all survive.
amiller6@capital.edu
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