Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Get Drunk On the Experience!

My dear younger, inexperienced self,

I know you dream of a day where you will experience freedom beyond the confines of your home and the entrapment of your parents’ rules. You will experience this and so much more one day when you are ready. That place will be Rhodes University, far from your neighbourhood in Durban.
This sounds enticing and I can tell you are already drunk with the feverish delight of promised free will. I want to offer you words of loving advice that will hopefully be put to use. University is a wonderful place to come into your own. There will be new experiences, opinions to explore and whole lot of dead guys you will have to study. There will be clubs, alcohol in various colours and mixtures and new faces that will become your friends. The campus is beautiful, tree-lined and always buzzing.
You will tumble head over heels into Oz, my dear Dorothy. I want you to know that you will detest everything on sight and want to run to the nearest bus stop to head home. You didn’t imagine you would feel like such a small fish in a huge ocean. You feel as of university would have been better back home, where everyone and everything is familiar to you. At first, Rhodes is hard and you feel as though you stick out like a Pink Floyd fan at a Rihanna concert. I want to tell you that even though every molecule in your body is telling you it’s not okay that it is, in fact, okay. You are completely normal. And even if you aren’t, what’s so great about being normal?
Just breathe and be yourself. Everyone is as scared and out-of-place as you. Remember what Dad told you: “shyness is a waste of time.” Shyness will rob people of the privilege it is to know who you really are. I am very proud that you have made it this far and will always be.
With love
Your Rhodent future self.

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Posted by opinionplease at 12:49 AM