I have to say I love college. A lot. The unprecedented freedom is bright, ethereal, luminous, just like opening a whole new shade of window for me. Independence tastes like a golden slice of apple, precious and glorious. Within the two months, I bought a pet fish named after a Greek God with my roommate, had and is still having a competition with my friends of whose fish lives longer (cruel, but no worries, both of our warriors remain vibrantly alive), had my first chai tea with coffee and whole milk while half-residing at Tisch for the notorious midterms, grasped what hegemonic war and the end of history meant (trust me, they’re a lot more interesting than they’re sound), memorized the Joey’s schedule, posed for my photograph-zealous friend on the academic quad with the yellow, golden leaves that I’ve never really seen back home, best-friended the only person on campus that listens to my favorite metal band, danced and piggybacked on the president lawn blasting music with a speaker, was forced to watch Game of Thrones and Sherlock Holmes and binged American Next Top Model till 3:30AM, celebrated a birthday with actually lighting candles in the dorm, timidly fanning the smoke away from the sensor, hit my first frat party even though “fraternity” has not been a word in my vocabulary since June, told The Little Mermaid in French for my oral assignment and have a friend who always introduces himself by the little mermaid, cooked frozen dumplings from Boston China Town, actually played quidditch on a broom with quaffles and bludgers (and the snitch!), and most importantly, built a new family that fully embraces me even when I spilled someone’s trail mix at two o’clock in the morning. But behind the fun, independence and freshness, comes responsibility, responsibility of taking care of yourself, comes pressure, pressure from being expected to know time management, comes weary nights of finger-munching self-doubts that is worse than any horror movies, and oh yeah, comes dark circles for sure I can guarantee. Just as respect is not given, the sky wide freedom and independence also have to be earned.
I come from a local school in Taiwan. For the first couple of weeks I tried desperately hard to fit in and become one of the cool kids I imagined from all the Hollywood and commercial America fed me. The transition is beyond great for me, leaving home, friends, familiarity behind. Even till now I cannot forget the look when my father dropped me off at the gym (I did TWO for my pre-orientation). I don’t think I ever will. I know, I know, everyone misses home sometimes, even though we’re unwilling to admit how we cannot wait to snuggle with the dog back home, how we loathed and cursed at the broken washing machine in the basement of our dorms and longing for Mom to laundry for us, or how food at Carm just sucks and Dewick is ridiculously far away (FYI it has always been a debate of which cafeteria’s better). Homesickness, the ferocious, gnawing nostalgia for home, is frustratingly real. But it is not the same for me when it took me twenty-four hours to fly to Boston Logan Airport from a familiar island I used to call home. I have to Skype back with my closest friends by a twelve-hour time difference, with at least one of us staying up till one or two. The tropical girl has to adjust from not only the warm, non-snowing winter in Taiwan, but also the goddamn Fahrenheit system (I’m sorry America, but metric system makes so much more sense). And the shift does not simply end there. All the party jargons, answering in class without being directly called, awkward language barriers (not knowing “shit-faced” meant getting drunk), being teased as a foreigner, the “’sup girl?” and “Would you mind if I call you Jen?” just bombarded me like hundreds and hundreds of arrows. I was shot dead. Bewildered. Baffled.
It’s been two months upon my arrival in America. Everything is different, but at the same time, nothing’s different. I’m still the Jennifer from Taiwan. I am still me. As crazy, confusing or frustrating everything could sound, it’s also totally fine to just be yourself. It’s okay to spend Friday night in Boston instead of parties, it’s okay to miss home or have a good cry, it’s okay to only have Asian friends (pandas included), who cares? Pressure’s on from everywhere and it has always been a mistake for me to forget what I truly want by soaking in all the cacophony from the outside. So don’t worry about fitting in in college, because judging is so immature that it’s really no big deal to just be comfortable in your own skin, even if that means being odd, quirky and different. I mean, “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” College is a thousand times better after I realized that, judgments, stereotypes and labels are all old-fashioned, especially at Tufts, where the Jumbo-sized net is always there to whole-heartedly embrace me for being different. This is the place to construct a new you without eradicating the basic you built, the pride of the very special background you carry, and the belief you clench in your fists so tightly that you are unwilling to give up. That is beautiful. And the freedom that you are granted with in college, allows you to do so.
We were not born to blend in. We were born to stand out and shine, to accept who we are and the unique background of ours. And that’s what the cool kids I’m talking about.