a reflection on my third year at uva
we once again find ourselves at a crossroads, back at home in our parents’ house with absolutely nothing to do as the summer heat begins to ramp up and we recognize that our summer breaks are numbered in life. it’s a familiar feeling that i know all too well, as i realize that, depending on the company i work for after graudation, this might be my last summer break in my life, closely mirroring the thoughts i had in my mind during the summer after my senior year of high school.
the following are the most significant findings i’ve made in my third year of college
temporal anomalies
the flow of time at this stage in my life feels perpetually convoluted. thinking about my third year in college paradoxically feels like it flew by, yet the beginning of year back august feels like it was so long ago.
it might be the way the college makes us think of the year in semesters, but it feels like every year in my college life can be defined by two clearly different episodes. likely, it’s the fact that each semester has me on completely different schedules, and in completely different classes that the changes in the time i eat lunch, the time i do homework, the path i take to get to walk to class, and many other lifestyle changes makes it feel like i’m living totally different lives semester-to-semester. comparing this to life back in high school, i find that every year in college is simply more eventful, as i’m able to recount every week and weekend, as i recall every time i went to a frat party or went out to bars, although perhaps that might also just be because i’m a lot more zealous when it comes to writing down every occurence in my life in my google calendar.
despite this, i find it strange how time in college seems to go back so much faster. the brain processes life events in a strange way, where memorable moments, such as an exhilerating concert or an exciting date, appear to go by in a flash but last very long in memory, whereas a monotonous event, such as waiting in line at the dmv for hours, seems to drag on in the moment, yet fades easily from memory in the long run. why, then, does college feel like it’s speeding by as i’m always out every weekend making memories?
dating sucks
college dating sucks a lot. when i came to uva, i felt like i had this subconscious pressure to find my life partner at college. it’s quite obvious that there’s a societal pressure to date in college, so when august of 2022 rolled around and i realized that i was more than half of the way through college and had spent the past year single, i felt like i was on the clock. i spent the semester constantly giving girls my number, asking girls for their numbers, and swiping through multiple dating apps whenever i wasn’t doing homework. i paid for a month of premium tinder with some money i got for my birthday and got several matches every day, yet 99% of the matches i got were either people who ghosted me or people i ghosted. by the end of the semester, i was out of it. from being ghosted by several people, to having someone hold me hostage with suicide threats, i was feeling pretty meh when it came to the thought dating for the rest of college.
the next semester, i decided to spare myself the drama and literally not to care about dating for a semester. basically all i did was study, exercise, or take care of myself. big surprise, i found that i was a lot happier. i found that the spring semester had me feeling accomplished purely just because i put my nose to the grindstone and got a great GPA and was able to go from doing a maximum of three pull-ups to fifteen. towards the end of the semester, i found that i had zero desire to talk to anyone at frat parties because i’d rather be studying or reading. sorry frat bros.
i decided to use dating apps for the first time in a while after finals of spring 2023 because i had nothing to do, and endeed up matching with someone who i actually enjoyed talking to. after a week or two of getting to know her, we eventually set up a picnic date on the day before i was planning on moving all of my stuff back home. the night before the day of the date, i was up late making all of the food that i was eager to share with my date and texted her asking for the location where we’d meet up and she blocked me for seemingly no reason. i guess that’s my sign that i shouldn’t be using those apps again for at least another month. at least the sandwiches and pasta salad were good.
i wouldn’t be opposed to the thought of meeting the right person for me in my last year of college, but i think either my priorities in college have shifted or i’m just tired of the drama.
be a normal person and watch tv
i used to get a lot of flak for not having seen a certain movie or tv show. i didn’t really like paying for a netflix or hbo subscription and finding a not-so-legal stream online was always a dodgy process that was annoying to deal with, so i really only entertained myself with video games, youtube, and tiktok.
part of the reason i stuck to those mediums was because they involved some degree of involvement: tiktok required scrolling (if you have autoscroll, get professional help), youtube required you to find good videos to watch, and i really hope i don’t have to explain why video games require interaction. i particularly loved that because i always felt the need to have some sort of mental stimulation. they all also didn’t require the same level of committment. you can get on and off any of them according to your schedule and don’t require your to take an hour out of every sunday to catch the newest episode (which is why whenever there was a show i liked, i would binge it and never watch tv for the rest of the year). i did find that, on days when i just didn’t want to do anything, i couldn’t entertain myself because i wasn’t up to the task of playing, scrolling, or browsing.
my roommates john and ethan both loved to watched tv and movies together when they weren’t doing homework or working out together. i, knowing my time with them was limited, would join in with them every once in a while. big surprise, turning off your brain and watching a screen is a pretty good form of entertainment when you don’t want to play video games is a decent way to spend your time relaxing. who would’ve thought?
when my john moved out halfway through the semester to go to navy bootcamp, he took his hbo subscription with him. my other roommate ethan and i wanted to keep watching the last of us, and ethan already had netflix and hulu, so i decided to bite the bullet and pay the $10 subscription. i was already paying $5 a month for spotify student, so what’s the big deal?
ever since taking an accounting class at uva, i’ve come to understand that time has value too. it’s why i sometimes order delivery instead of driving to a restaurant if i’m working on something important. it’s how i evaluate big purchases based on how long i think i will use whatever i want to buy. i can say for certain that $10 a month for hbo is more than worth the hours of enjoyment i get from using my subscription.
it’s okay to splurge occasionally
growing up in an immigrant family, my parents raised me to be quite frugal. my parents’ families used to only make a few dollars every week. when i was a kid and got upset for getting combination birthday/christmas presents, my mom told me about how she would feel the same way when she only got to eat a big dinner of meat and eggs only once a year because her birthday was always close to chinese new year. despite being in one of the top tax brackets of the country, my family still eats boiled meat and cabbage like we were struggling to survive the winter.
making my way into adult life, this sort of mindset made itself apparent in my spending habits. whenever i got my allowance from my parents, i would set aside $100-200 in my savings account, “just in case”. one of my high school friends asked me “what is the point of saving if you have nothing to save for?”
i suppose he was right. my compulsive saving was reaching a point where it was actively making my life pretty miserable. my friends would be going out to bars and i would choose not to go with them because i didn’t want to spend money on drinks. after a while in college, i realized some things:
- save money at bars by pregaming (for some reason i forgot that this was a thing)
- it’s not the end of the world to dip into your savings acccount
- it’s not a big deal if you don’t hit your savings goal for the month
obviously, giving into temptation is good only in moderation, but i found it quite surprising how much happier i was by not being to uptight with my money all the time. this might come as a surprise to some of my friends because they see me buying a bunch of expensive toys like my nintendo switch and steam deck, but they also didn’t know how long i was eating ramen noodles and bagged tuna to save up that money.
contemplating the cosmos
this section became a little too long, so i made a separate post out of it. Click here to read
