It has been a really tough year in the best way possible. I have spent the past three weeks in a complete slump feeling like the stupidest most inadequate person on campus and maybe even the greater Providence area for no particular reason. While the low self-esteem aspect of my newfound stupidity sucks... IT IS ALSO AWESOME!!! 

It feels like the beginning of TMS all over again. Fieldston was easy. I got into every program I applied to and made honors grades writings papers named after Hannah Montana songs (literally... I wrote an essay called "Odysseus: Nobody's Perfect"). I can't do that here. I have to work my butt off to get good grades. I don't have my reputation as a star student or a hard worker excuse any lack of effort. I am surrounded by smart people who scare the crap out of me and inspire me to do better. 

I got wait listed for two student groups I applied to and it was the best slap in the face I could have gotten because the hubris little high schooler in me wrote the applications in one hour. I got a 75 on a bio test. I tried to convince someone that if it was 4pm in Los Angeles it would be 1pm in Ohio (twice) because I was so tired from studying that that made perfect sense in my mind. 

All that being said, I think I'm doing this whole freshman year thing right. I'm not failing school. I currently have 3 A's and a B. I love my friends. I'm pretty sure they love me too (either that or they are great actors/ part of some government experiment). I'm simultaneously exhausted and the most awake I have ever been. So screw feeling stupid because anyone who doesn't feel stupid is probably too full of their own 5-syllable intellectual bullshit to realize how truly liberating it is to feel dumb... how deciding not to be pre-med opens up a world filled with sarcophaguses and sphinxes... how burning toast in the dining hall is a great way to meet new people (occasionally and accidentally)... how trying to fashion a mouse trap out of lacrosse sticks and glue might be the only correct way to bond with your roommates (note to Alden, put mice in dorms)... and so much more.

So alas, another Char rant. Please respond to this email with something about you/ TMS life/ something so I don't feel like a completely self-obsessed college student having an existential crisis about timezones.