Hello, freshperson!
Today, I would like to share a very personal top secret story, which is still continuing to this day, from the Sally Chen vaults of memory. It all started back in August when I was terrified of high school, had chronic clammy cringe-worthy hands, and to top it all off, awful nasty stress acne the moment I went to orientation. What a great way to start my freshmen year, right?
For my first few months of high school, I found that I had no classes with any of my middle school friends and rarely got the chance to see them. People always told me that high school started out tough until you found your clique. With a distinct lack of social life and being stupidly stubborn, I became dead set on finding my true calling, my DESTINY. I shuffled through club after club, from Jew Crew to Visual Arts to buildOn and back. I tried out Forensics, Doctor Who Appreciation Society, and Red Cross—a whole plethora.
Each activity had its merits, and I’m not saying that they were not bucketloads of fun- because they were! But I never felt like I had found my niche, the place where I was meant to be. And so the search went on.
Towards the end of the semester, student government elections began and I had not really given much thought towards running, but I decided to give it a shot. My slogan was quite literally, “Rally for Sally, I am mildly funny and I’m a good listener and oh god please like me please be my friend.” To my complete and utter surprise, people probably felt some kind of kinship towards my bumbling baby giraffe approach towards life, and I was elected 2015 board president. Once again, true to my nature, I proceeded to awkward things up in record time. I could not for the life of me figure out how to interact normally with any of the other LSA officers, who seemed to have already become BFFs when I wasn’t looking.
As my freshmen year ended, I found myself frustrated, stressed, and more than a little weepy. I didn’t fit in anywhere! Woe was me! No happily ever after for ogres! Boo hoo! Coal for Christmas! I spent all of summer break wallowing in self-pity and mulling over my life choices. Just before the start of my sophomore year, I came to an odd conclusion as one of my best friends hugged me goodbye before we left for different schools once more. The truth is, there may not be a perfect one true place (OTP for the tumblr users) for you or for me. I certainly haven’t found it yet.
But that does not mean that we do not belong.
Lowell is a big place with huge amounts of resources and a wide variety of people. Don’t stress about finding “the place where you belong,” like some kind of golden promised land. There will always be a place where people appreciate you, where you don’t feel stupid when you state your opinions, and where the people around you laugh at your bad jokes. Your friends, your extracurricular, your favorite class, whatever it may be.
And trust me, that will be more than enough.
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