Need some life advice... (LONG)

In My Humble Opinion
21

Jukaal, making friends can be kind of intimidating in a new place. I make friends pretty easily, and I had a rough start too. What helped a lot was accepting every single invitation to do something/hang out/go out that came my way- at least for a while. (Barring a big test the next day, excessive homework and whatnot.) Even if I didn’t particularly hit it off with the people I went with, I often met people once we’d arrived.

Another easy thing to do is to ask the person next to you in class what they’ve got planned for the weekend. Makes great small-talk and sometimes you get an invite. It’s also a good opener for making new friends. Just ask something like “So, Jimbob, what are you gonna be doing this weekend? I’m kind of new to the area and I’m having trouble finding fun stuff to do.” Jimbob might be going to the local stamp collector’s rodeo, but you might meet someone there who has tastes more like yours. And if you don’t, you might end up being pretty good friends with Jimbob himself. (He probably likes other stuff, besides stamp-lassoing. :wink: )

22

Jukaal;

Sorry about the misunderstanding about who is funding your education (grandmama, not mommy as indicated in your op), how well you did in high school (really well except for that damn gpa), how you just blew your mid-term (not quite nuclear), and your really good chance of getting into college in NH ( based on your op).

Seriously, I think you should fold up your tent and go home. You have already given up. You don’t want advice, everytime someone (nicer than me) gives you some you reply with another reason why you should go home. Bottom line, its your life. The advice you want is “Go home”. So I say to you “GO HOME”.

23

I’ve never been a fan of telling people what they want to hear when it isn’t the best advice I can give, even if it pisses them off. I can deal with whining, too, as long as it isn’t incredibly circular. (Of course, I work with small children. I may have become numb.)

Don’t go home, Jukaal. It isn’t the best decision, IMHO.

24

You only have a year. Wow. To get an Associates degree in a year, at a good school–what a great deal! Don’t pass it up!

I am older than you, but I am far, far away from my friends in S. California, and I miss them terribly. But that’s what the Internet is for–I keep in touch through email, I even read the LA Times online every day. It helps keep the homesickness at bay.

You’re lucky–you only have a year of homesickness. I haven’t been “home” in over a year, and I won’t be able to visit for at least 6 months if not more. And I won’t be able to visit Yosemite National Park this year! Damn. I don’t want to think about it. :frowning: (See? There’s someone more pathetic than you! ;))

You can do it. It’s hard, but you can. I know how you feel, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel–it’s just a year. Consider how awesome it will feel to have completed your education at this school (in a year! just a year!) and to be able to return to NH, feeling very accomplished and proud of yourself. It’ll be a great feeling. You can do it!

25

This isn’t the pit, so lets not make it an arguement.

I am simpy trying to convey my thoughts and give the reasoning behind it. I’ve not always given another reason why I should return to NH.

Anyway, thanks for your advice to those who gave it. I’ll update with how things go I guess. Although it probably will be awhile before I make my decision anyhow. And now I know not to ask the straight dope for life advice, I’ll stick to asking retarded questions in the General Q forum now.

26

Lol Yosemitebabe, sorry to hear you can’t visit Yosemite nation park, as it obviously is something you like to do. (your name is Yosemitebabe after all…)

Thanks for your input.

27

:frowning: Some of us have tried to give you the best advice we can. Don’t dismiss all of us that way, please. I’ve gotten some great advice on these boards, in between snarky replies. [insert baby/bathwater smarminess here.]

28

Sorry Hyperjes, sometimes its hard to see through all the pigshit on my monitor. :stuck_out_tongue:

29

I still can’t get over how cool Full Sail was, and that was back in 1997 or '98 when I was there. For those who don’t know, it is a PREMIER school for recording arts, film production, computer animation, video game design, and more. A lot of famous musicians recorded gold and platinum albums there, among other things. They are so cool, they even let my old ska-punk band record a demo tape in those famous studios for free, as part of the educational process for the engineers and techs. Jukaal, I’d be excited as hell about my future if I had been able to go there. And I wish you the best, even though you think we’re all pigshit.

30

Lol, I don’t think your all like that. Just a few people, which are always around, in every situation.

On a different note, I’m currently taking Digital Media (web design, photoshop, some 3d modeling and whatnot). Thinking I should switch to Film or Computer Animation.

I LOOOOOOVE making movies, have been for almost a year now (yes, with my little shitty camera and friends in NH). However, I don’t know about the job field available for the film industry. Anyone know about the film industry after graduating and how promising a job is in that field?

31

Finish what you started. You’ll be a helluva lot more attractive to your little Chickadee in NH if you look like you have some stick-to-it-iveness. It’s a fucking year. The rest of your pathetic life is a lot longer than that. Make it less pathetic. Finish your lousy year of school. Trust me.

32

I went back to colleges about 10 years after high school, attending classes full time while working full time for four years. It sucked. I can’t even give you an accurate count of the number of times I wanted to quit, mainly because I missed being able to spend time with the people who were important to me. So I think my perspective might be helpful to you.

I know you think Tenebras is being overly abrasive, and maybe that’s true. But it does sound somewhat as if you’re trying to justify going back home. I don’t blame you; I know it’s hard to be your age, away from all your friends. (And having a hard time making friends doesn’t make you a loser. It just means you’re probably a little shy.)

This is about more than where you should go to school and/or missing your friends, though. This is about the rest of your life and finishing what you start, even if it’s difficult. If you had started med school, then realized that you had no business being a doctor–well, that’s one thing. But you’re at an excellent school that specializes in what you want to do, even if you have to change majors.

Also, I know you say you’ll start school in NH as soon as you can, but please listen to those of us who have been there. Since you wouldn’t be starting right after you get back, you won’t believe how incredibly easy it is to tell yourself, I’ll just wait one more semester to start. That ‘one semester’ can easily turn into 10 years (a figure I didn’t just pull out of my hat :)). You don’t want to get out of the school groove, especially since you don’t seem to like school all that much in the first place.

Finally, and this is important, you said most of your friends live at home “and do next to nothing.” As harsh as this sounds, you do not want to be spending a lot of time with these people while you’re trying to get started as an adult. You may think it will be easier to be home, but really it will just be difficult in a different way.

I wish you the best, Jukaal. I’m sure we all do. Please listen to all the people here and stick it out. You won’t regret it. You can do this.

33

Er, that’s college, not colleges. :smack:

34

You’re looking at a choice here. You can choose to behave like a mature, responcible adult, or you can choose to remain at the level of a high school student who has run out of high school. You know what your friends are doing, and you aren’t being realistic about your chances of mature behavior if you move back. (C’mon, you’re going to live in an apartment with one of these people? Yes, they may work, but do you know hard it is to study, attend class, and work while your living environment is filled with people who are spending yet another evening on drunken video games? You want to suceed, behave like the people who are suceeding. Rule #17 of Sucessful College Students: Live with other sucessful college students. Even a sucessful worker bee can be a hardship as a roomate. They have time to watch tv every night after work. You do not. Live with people whose idea of social time is heading to the library together on Saturday morning. It’ll do wonders for your grades.)

Its time to choose,a nd you have to do it now. Are you going to buckle down, grow up, work your ass off and reap your rewards, or are you going to leave that for later? Yes, its work. Yes its hard. Yes it sucks. But that is how being a responcible adult is sometimes. Welcome to your life, make your choice. You already know what the “good” choice is, you are just balking at it because its the hard one, and it requires a lot out of you, and frankly it looks like its going to be far less of a party than you expected. If you don’t want to put the effort in, don’t, but don’t lie to yourself about what is going on.

35

See if you can make study friends at your school. Built-in motivation, and social life as well. And Medea’s Child has words of wisdom as to how to choose your friends in school - listen and be wise, grasshopper.

Not to mention that this is a great thing to be able to say at an interview.

“So, tell us about yourself.”

“Well, when I buckle down, I really get things done. I got my Associate in Arts in thirteen months, because I decide that is what would be good for me to do. So tell me more about this job you are looking to fill.”

Regards,
Shodan

36

If I may…since I’m a lurker here, none of you really know me, but I just had to chime in here.

Personally Jukall I think it would be good for you to stay there. It sounds like you truly aren’t giving it a fair chance.

One of the best life experiences I ever had was moving to a strange town. I moved from Tennessee to Pennsylvania for one year. I detested PA. BUT I learned that I COULD do it, and THAT was important to me. I didn’t know a single soul. I found a job, learned my way around the town (Reading PA, if it matters) learned that I could make new friends and assimilate into a foreign world (to me). The growing up I did during that year has made a world of difference to me.

Truly a year is nothing.

But what you really HAVE to do is make a conscious decision about how that year will be for you.

For example. After moving back to TN and swearing before all that is good and holy that I would NEVER leave again, I found myself faced with that very life changing decision. I moved from TN to AZ in 1997. I moved because I had met a wonderful man and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. He had a very very good job here in AZ and, well, I didnt. So I moved. Sight unseen. I had never even visited this place. Heck the furthest west I’d ever been was a trip to Louisiana when I was 8. This was a drastic move for me. I mean at least PA was within a reasonable driving distance from TN. Im 3 days away driving now. ANYwho…I digress. For the first 8 or so months I wasnt really happy. I kept comparing AZ to ‘home’. I kept focusing on the things I missed…and the way my life used to be…Finally one day I realised I was making MYSELF miserable. I wasn’t even trying to enjoy my life. I made a decision to quit focusing on the negatives and try to find some positives. I missed the humidity (yeah, I’m weird, I know) but I did. I missed the fall in east Tennessee, I missed grass…good God what I wouldnt give for GRASS!!! but I realised, I loved the sunsets…I loved the rainbows…I loved the winter times here. ( I live in the mountains so we get plenty of snow but it’s dry powdery perfect snow…none of that wet harsh cold bone biting stuff from back east)…things like that…I started really focusing on what I loved here (not just nature stuff, but you get the drift) …and before I knew it…i TRULY loved it…I really, with all my heart LOVE where I live now…I couldnt imagine going back.

Basically what I’m saying is…you can be happy if you choose to be happy…and you can be miserable if you choose to be miserable. I think you have a great opportunity here. I don’t personally know much about your school , but it sounds like it’s a wonderful one from reading the responses here. If you are mentally stuck though in misery pining away for your old friends and old life…you are doomed to be miserable. You couldnt have fun even if you wanted to. But if you choose to seek out the good life you could have…well then the sky’s the limit.

For me, that little 1 year trip I took to PA, was so very beneficial, because I think that everyone should pack up and move once in their lives out of their safety zone, and see that it can be done.

Sweety, it’s all mental…and its all your choice.

I sincerely hope you can be strong and take from Florida what you can get and enjoy it. Theres no law saying you can’t move back North. But good God, find your joy while you’re there.

37

We spend our lives missing who we left behind. We get over it and move on with our lives. You aren’t a child anymore. Going back to your friends wouldn’t work. They have new lives. The ones that don’t are growing up to be those pitiful once jocks who shot their whole wad in high school. That was their pinnicle. Nothing better will ever happen to them.
Is that who you want to be?!
Besides, third decade angst is a life requirement. Best to start early and be done with it.
My husband when back when he got homesick and it was an eye opener. Life had moved on without him.

38

The year will fly!! Time goes fast, trust me. Your friends aren’t going anywhere it sounds like (keeping in touch daily), you’ll be proud of yourself when you’re done, and you’ll be doing something you like with this education. Good luck and keep strong!

39

If you bail on this now, you will always have the excuse to bail on things in the future. Well, I bailed on Full Sail and that turned out ok…I’ll bail on this because I didn’t like working Tuesdays after a full moon. Trust me, I’ve walked in those moccosins.

Stick to it and then make plans to move.

Make your friends proud of you when you finish your degree. You may even encourage them.

Be the inspiration for others.
PS: I’ve lived where I am at for 10 years now and am only now slowly making friends. Gosh, I sound pathetic.) There is a difference between lonliness and being alone. Get yourself so busy that you won’t have time to think about either.

In ten-20-50 years, you will be thankful that you did.

40

Heck, you’ll feel like that in a year. When you’re done, the sense of accomplishment alone will be worth the time and money.

And mystycalchyk is right: we’re as happy–or as miserable–as we choose to be. “Look on the bright side” is an annoying cliché, but it’s also good advice. Stop thinking about how miserable you are, and stop using your homesickness as an excuse to fail in class. Because if you examine yourself honestly, I think you’ll find that that’s what you’re doing.

I’ll say it again: you can do this.