Comfort Zones!
It's amazing how fast people can adapt. We get thrown into a situation outside what we know as our comfort zone, and yet very soon that very new and frightening situation can become familiar. I just started back up at ASU this semester and was totally and completely overwhelmed for the first week or two. I left my little tiny school where everything was on track and on time to be thrown back a year or so in this massive university and have very little idea of what was going on. I didn't speak the specific dialect of this school, I didn't know a single person in this place, I was older than most of my classmates and yet behind them in many ways, and I was, once again, the new kid.
Well, after about 6 weeks of school, I finally have friends! Well, sort of. I have good acquaintances who are likely on their way to becoming my friends, which is a wonderful thing. I've settled into a routine as much as possible. I've found some kind of balance between getting everything done and staying sane, though I've had to sacrifice some on the sleep. I know my way around now, I've found all the best (and worst) drinking fountains and bathrooms, and I've adapted to the terminology. In these few short weeks it's gone from overwhelming crazy-land to comfort zone.
And I left that zone today! I can attend all my classes in a day without stepping foot outside or seeing many totally new faces. I get to school, park by the music building, spend most of my day in the music building, leave for observations/work, and half the time come back to the music building for a concert. But today, I left that safe little haven and had to go onto more of the main campus - and it's quite startling how uncomfortable that was! Inside the School of Music it's easy to forget that there are 70000+ students here. (The SoM is about the size of all of SWC, by the way.) Then suddenly, there I was, surrounded by bikes and skateboards and people dressed in funny clothes and not carrying instruments or singing as they walked; people studying things I can't comprehend; people trying to give me books on meditation or sign me up for some nature conserving thing and five other ways of taking my money; people talking and laughing and cursing and smoking and running and yelling and walking and napping and joking and just generally being everywhere! I remembered then that I am in a huge school and that there is a whole vast heap of other people there, whose lives don't affect mine on a daily basis but are still involved in something I am involved in. And somehow, this made me uncomfortable! It was no longer familiar, safe, quiet (well, quite in the way a music school is quiet), small, or contained.
This surprised me. I started at ASU, after all. I have moved to a foreign country, not knowing the language or any people there. I have transferred many times. I like adventures. I like new things, exciting things, uncomfortable things. But for some reason, walking across campus today affected me in ways I had no idea it would, and I was so glad to get back to the "comfort" and "safety" of the music building. Who knew.
I feel like this should somehow have a deeper meaning behind it, besides my own brief encounter with an unexpected psychological reaction to crowds. Perhaps it's a sign of the onset of mild agoraphobia. Or maybe I'm just not straddling that line between successful student and sane human as well as I thought I was. Ah well. Goodnight, world.
Stay small.
s
Well, after about 6 weeks of school, I finally have friends! Well, sort of. I have good acquaintances who are likely on their way to becoming my friends, which is a wonderful thing. I've settled into a routine as much as possible. I've found some kind of balance between getting everything done and staying sane, though I've had to sacrifice some on the sleep. I know my way around now, I've found all the best (and worst) drinking fountains and bathrooms, and I've adapted to the terminology. In these few short weeks it's gone from overwhelming crazy-land to comfort zone.
And I left that zone today! I can attend all my classes in a day without stepping foot outside or seeing many totally new faces. I get to school, park by the music building, spend most of my day in the music building, leave for observations/work, and half the time come back to the music building for a concert. But today, I left that safe little haven and had to go onto more of the main campus - and it's quite startling how uncomfortable that was! Inside the School of Music it's easy to forget that there are 70000+ students here. (The SoM is about the size of all of SWC, by the way.) Then suddenly, there I was, surrounded by bikes and skateboards and people dressed in funny clothes and not carrying instruments or singing as they walked; people studying things I can't comprehend; people trying to give me books on meditation or sign me up for some nature conserving thing and five other ways of taking my money; people talking and laughing and cursing and smoking and running and yelling and walking and napping and joking and just generally being everywhere! I remembered then that I am in a huge school and that there is a whole vast heap of other people there, whose lives don't affect mine on a daily basis but are still involved in something I am involved in. And somehow, this made me uncomfortable! It was no longer familiar, safe, quiet (well, quite in the way a music school is quiet), small, or contained.
This surprised me. I started at ASU, after all. I have moved to a foreign country, not knowing the language or any people there. I have transferred many times. I like adventures. I like new things, exciting things, uncomfortable things. But for some reason, walking across campus today affected me in ways I had no idea it would, and I was so glad to get back to the "comfort" and "safety" of the music building. Who knew.
I feel like this should somehow have a deeper meaning behind it, besides my own brief encounter with an unexpected psychological reaction to crowds. Perhaps it's a sign of the onset of mild agoraphobia. Or maybe I'm just not straddling that line between successful student and sane human as well as I thought I was. Ah well. Goodnight, world.
Stay small.
s
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