GUEST BLOGGER #1

After my first attempt at a guest-blogger has gone up in smoke, I am pleased to announce that I have received another guest-blogging entry from a dear dear friend of mine (ie my BFFF). So, without further ado, I give you... Kristina...

Let me open by saying that I know college is important and that everyone should have an opportunity to better him or herself through education. Let me then add that college, while important and seemingly essential, is NOT for everyone. Repeat: NOT. FOR. EVERYONE. And in this entry in particular, I am talking about crazy people.

Now. I know that people can’t help being crazy. I know that depression and disorders are all perfectly human and I would never set out to argue that they are illegitimate or SOMETHING SMALL. But I ask you crazy people out there to remember this simple mantra, from me to you, and in the spirit of proper Bettiquette:

If you can’t get your life together, you shouldn’t be in college.

This is practical and simple Bettiquette: If you can’t take care of yourself, you do not belong in an educational institution where your life and success depends directly on what you are capable of putting into it. For the sake of others, FIGURE YOURSELF OUT FIRST—THEN COME TO COLLEGE. Let us explore some areas in which you would be infringing upon the sanity and functionality of others.

1. Your roommate - It all seems well and fine until your roommate finds out about, oh, say, your special meds that you refuse to take and your therapy sessions that you don’t attend, because of whatever reason. A simple, happy relationship and rapport cannot be maintained when you wake up in a bad mood and decide to vent it all onto the person you share a room with.

Examples:

• Do not scream, “You hate me!” at your friends and roommates every time a normal but uncomfortable issue comes up a la being asked to turn down the volume of the TV.
• Do not tell your roommate about your bipolar medication that you don’t take because it makes you feel a certain way, and then start a passive-aggressive paranoia fest in the room.
• Do not tell tiny compulsive lies about your roommate that seem insignificant, but add up because you want something else (ie, you want to spend all your time in your boyfriend’s room but his roommate is getting pissed off, so you lie and say “My room always has my roommate in it so I can’t go there”, when your roommate explicitly leaves for hours so you can sex it up all you want)

2. Your professors AND your roommate - You’re depressed. I understand that. But that means you’re not getting out of bed in the morning, and therefore you are missing your 8:30. And, since you’ve missed your 8:30, why not skip your 10 o’clock? And all your classes for the day? Or maybe the next two days? Or maybe the entire week? Lets face it…if you can’t get your own life in check, how do you expect to go out and worry about what your professors expect you do to, let alone what you need to do for yourself?

Examples:

• You will not go to class. You will piss off your professors, because they will either be tired if your constant excuses, or irritated that you never give any excuse or reason for missing their class and not completing their work. This isn’t high school!
• You will piss off your friends, who will initially feel bad that you are failing out of school, and then rapidly lose sympathy because they realize that, while you are expected to go to the same amount of classes as them and put in the same amount of work as them, you have done neither of those things all semester. In addition, instead of proactively addressing the issue, you will use the system to your advantage to be excused from projects, essays, etc, and your friends will resent you for using your depression to get ahead in school, but not doing anything to cure said depression or insisting that you “really aren’t depressed” and “don’t need help”.
• You will piss off your parents. See below.
  

3. Your parents - Hey, it’s not easy to tell your parents that you need to put off going to college because you need to see a therapist instead. But isn’t it worse when you tell your parents that you hate school, you failed out halfway through the year, and that the college still expects you to pay for the room and tuition? Oh, and now you still need a therapist and you have to pay off student loans.

Examples:

• You will lie to them, telling them how great college is and telling them all about your classes and projects. You will lure them into a false sense of security, wherein they will say to themselves, “How grown up my child is!” You will then betray their trust when you call them up and say “Mom? Blankity Blank University has asked me not to come back.”
• You will get extensions and ask for incompletes up the yingyang—but you won’t do the work. You are too sick/ too depressed/ too sad/ too angry to think about anything else. And ultimately, you will only end up prolonging your expulsion and failure, and waste more money on your failed education.

So, for god sakes and for the sanity of others: PLEASE LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF BEFORE YOU LEARN HOW TO BE AROUND OTHERS. Get your own shit together before your very understanding but increasingly impatient roommates want to murder you. And most of all don’t come to college UNLESS YOU HAVE YOUR OWN SHIT UNDER CONTROL.

You’ll be much happier for it.

Trust me.