Higher Education

So now that I’m about to graduate, I’ve been reflecting on what that actually means. I’m currently sitting in my economics class- arguably the hardest class I’ve ever taken as the T.A. doesn’t speak English very well, skips slides when we ask him a question, and is awful about actually getting anyone to learn the concepts he’s trying to teach. He just handed back our tests. I got an 8 out of 20. Am I proud of this grade? No. Did I originally think I bombed it? Yes. Then he starts talking about how EVERYONE did very poorly, and he scaled an 8/20 to a B. Just turned my morning from super crappy to actually a decent grade in a difficult class. I only took this class when I was considering going to UConn for grad school, as it is a required prerequisite for the Agriculture and Resource Economics Master’s Program. Seeing as I’m not going to UConn, this class is pointless as it’s not stimulating and I’m not actually learning a single thing. If you’re on top of things, you’d notice that I’m writing this post during my class, but believe me, paying attention would get me literally nowhere, as I can’t understand the guy. A grade of a B in a course that I’m essentially teaching myself isn’t so bad. Especially since I’m taking 6 classes this semester, finishing my honors thesis, volunteering at Mystic Aquarium, and working at Panera Bread. I’ve never been so busy as I have this year. Two of my classes are essentially optional, this economics class and my Marine Fisheries and Policy class. I like the topic though and the professor for that is wonderful, so I could never drop that one. I’m sort of convinced that my degree would not benefit me at all, though, if I wasn’t going to graduate school. I was reading in the news that 1 in 2 college graduates graduating this year will not be able to find a job or will work somewhere that has no relation to their degree (i.e. if I kept working at Panera). An economist at the University of California noted that jobs requiring less education (such as waitress or cashier) are being filled by people with a bachelor’s degree rather than high-school graduates. But then where do the people that cannot afford a college education/ don’t have the motivation or desire to go after that higher education go? With a cycle like this unemployment and welfare will be on the rise and the divide between the educated and uneducated (and now unemployed) will increase. Here’s the link to that website about the job market for 2012 graduates: http://new.m.yahoo.com/w/ygo-frontpage/lp/story/us/2235783/coke.bp?ref_w=frontdoors&.ysid=GBTCvo1HnAz0UNvbG26OOQfz&.intl=US&.lang=en

Out on the water with Cape Ann Divers

So this weekend I drove with my dive buddy Mike (a 23 year old scuba instructor navy guy from Groton who already graduated from college in Pennsylvania) up to Gloucester, MA. Gloucester, if you've never been there, is an incredible old fishing village (featured in the film "The Perfect Storm" if you've ever seen that) that turned into a touristy-style beachy town. We met up with my friend Hilary, the current president of the UConn Scuba Club (remember, that club that I started back in Fall of 2010?). We stayed at the Samarkind Inn, an awesome little bed and breakfast literally parked right on a huge stretch of beach. It was great to be up there right before the real start to tourist season. It was a really sad weekend for Gloucester though, as a little two year old girl got swept out to sea and never found. More information about that here: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/04/22/mass_police_suspend_search_for_missing_toddler/ So we got up there late Friday, and Saturday morning we met a whole bunch of other divers from UMass and UNH (New Haven, not New Hampshire). The boat was packed with 17 divers, all college students except one older guy who was really awesome. He dove as part of Project DEEP, which is a nonprofit organization that gets college kids more involved with diving. Supposedly he's going to put pictures of us up on this site, but he hasn't yet. http://www.projectdeep.info/index.html So Saturday we went out and dove the Chester A. Poling. The Poling was a Kerosene tanker that sank heading into Gloucester Harbor. Some more information about that boat here: http://www.northernatlanticdive.com/shipwrecks/chester_poling/chester_poling.htm It split in two, and we only dove the stern of the boat. The stern is in 100 feet, which was great because I'm only certified to dive up to 130 feet. The bow of the boat is in 190 feet. We ended up going down a stairwell into the boat, and Mike ended up turning a corner to check out a room full of bunks. Personally, going into a wreck at about 90 feet deep (it sits about 10 feet up off the sand) the first time I've ever seen it in pretty poor visibility is pretty scary. Thus, we had a great time. Hilary dove with Tyler, the president of the UNH Scuba Club who was just as qualified as Mike. At the bottom, the temperature was only 34 degrees, definitely the coldest dive I've ever done!! After that, we dove Picket's Ledge, which is a series of vertical rock outcrops, that you can either swim down into the trenches between the rocks, or over top of them perpendicular to the trenches. We swam down into the trenches, and very quickly went from about 20 feet deep to over 60. I've never seen as many sea urchins, starfish, or lobsters (over twenty, all legal size!) in my life. Boy was I sorry I didn't get a lobster license before we went out there! All of the colors remind me of New Zealand!! Also keep in mind you can click on the pictures to make them bigger! I'm not sure if the pictures will get added in order, but here's a couple of descriptions: in one picture that looks like just blackness, focus on the top of the picture- there's a really pretty ctenophore (type of jellyfish) in the top middle). in the picture of spindly threads with pink ends, those covered the mooring line that we went up and down. There's also a picture of the boat (verrrrry hard to photograph due to all the divers kicking up silt) There's a picture of the edge of my dive computer, the top number is the depth and the bottom number is the temperature! Anemones... There's a really silty picture of some stairs on the shipwreck There's also a picture of part of the ship with a lobster right in the middle of the screen, with a communications box on the bottom right side of that picture.... We picked up some old line while we were diving the ledge...

Fort Wetherill, Rhode Island

A post about last weekend before this weekend: So last weekend I went with my friend Mike to dive at Fort Wetherill in Rhode Island. On Saturday the visibility was up to 30 feet! We dove the left side of the cove, which was only about 20 feet, super colorful, and a great dive. Unfortunately, Sunday visibility was back down to about 8 feet. Both days I was able to play with all sorts of sea creatures, including anemones, horshoe crabs (notice the picture of his belly!), lobsters, and different types of starfish. I also learned how to use my dive computer, which tracks essentially everything about a dive, including depth, temperature, how much oxygen your body is getting, how much nitrogen absorbs into your body, how quickly you move up and down, etc. It's SO cool because afterwards it wirelessly transfers everything to your laptop, where you can actually look at your dive profile. As you look at the pictures, notice the huge horseshoe crab I picked up, as well as the "italian spider crab," talking with his hands! I'm so grateful to have an underwater camera!

self-reflectance

Today’s post is a self-reflective piece about sharing. While it is true that I have no problem introducing myself to anyone, anywhere in the most cordial outgoing way, I think I have severe issues in holding certain things back. Such as in this blog, for some reason I have that “need to share information” thing going on. I think it can also be called “word vomit.” For some reason I can’t hold something back. If it crops up in my brain that I think I should get it out, then I HAVE to. Otherwise it’ll literally eat away at me to the point where I’m physically sick from the stress of it. I’m probably the most straightforward girl in the entire world because if something is wrong, I’ll tell you.

Along the same line as being so incredibly outwardly friendly, I function at a loss as I rarely keep anything to myself. I function as an all or nothing friend, either I’ll care about you and pretty much do anything to make sure you’re happy, but largely put you before myself.

How is that fair to me? Who takes care of me if I’m too busy taking care of everybody else? I’ve spent far too long investing in friends, putting my dreams and well wishes into hoping the best for other people, whilst forgetting about myself. Of course I’ll still care about you, but I need to focus on caring about me, too.

Today’s quotes:
"Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it."--Hardy D. Jackson
"This above all: to thine own self be true" Shakespeare

titles are for squares.

This post is dedicated to one person that gets me like no other. Danielle. She is bubbly, infectiously optimistic, beautiful both inside and out, genuine, mature, and goes after what she wants in life. We have an odd friendship in that we’ve seen each other once in the past 15 months, but with every phone call I am reminded why I love her so much.

Today I’m in a good place. I stayed up until 4:30 this morning finishing up a draft of my honors thesis paper. While daunting, it is the single most important paper of my undergraduate career and a huge part of determining if I graduate with honors. Why am I killing myself? Because I’m not the type of person to half-ass something so significant. At this point, I’ve got to see it through. No excuses!

I need to receive that honors degree similar to needing an acceptance letter from the Coast Guard Academy. Even though it holds no real-world significance, I have to see it through. In high school, I killed myself applying to the Coast Guard Academy. I got in, and then decided it was absolutely not for me. Even getting in was a huge honor, and enough of an accomplishment in itself that I realized that I didn’t need to be unhappy for the next four years of my life to prove to myself I could do it. That acceptance was enough of an accomplishment. Plus, I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life as a number, not a name or personality. The better part of me (according to myself) would go to waste.

A big part of the reason I didn’t end up there was because I realized I can’t and don’t want to willingly yell at younger students, because the year before upperclassmen were yelling at me. I believe in helping people learn things the right way in a friendly environment. Call me soft, but honestly, I don’t have an “angry face.” I don’t get mad. When I get thoroughly frustrated, I tend to let all the stress build up and I breakdown rather than outwardly express how I feel. Dangerous as it may be, I have yet to lose friends to hot-tempered arguments as I usually hold my tongue until I get home and vent elsewhere.

Life has been ridiculous lately. When I have lunch with a group of friends (usually on Tuesdays up at Storrs), they all sit in awe as I tell them about my day-to-day. When actually listen to myself talk about how crazy all over the place I am, I sound like a sitcom. For example, the other week I convinced my roommate to skip a class to hang out with me because it was such a beautiful day. He did, and as it turns out he had an exam that day, which he is unable to make up. Oh yeah. If you didn’t already know I live with a dude. Probably one of the best ideas ever. Chris is calm, fun, similar to me in nearly every way (salutatorian, wanted to go to the Coast Guard, likes deviled eggs, transferred from Storrs to Avery Point…) and now like a brother to me. Even though he doesn’t always pick up his beer cans or do the dishes, I’ve developed a great appreciation for the simplicity that comes with living with a guy. No catty drama, unless I bring something up. In which case I caused it essentially.

Back to why my life is ridiculous. For some reason, funny things happen to me all the time. I think as I get older, my brain is functioning less and less well. Last week I nearly blew myself up trying to light our gas grill. Chris didn’t know how and my brother wouldn’t get up and show us, so I just turned on the propane tank and lit the lighter. BAD IDEA. I burnt off the ends of my hair, all those little tiny hairs on the arm that was holding the lighter, and was covered in gross black ash. Nothing is worse than the smell of burnt hair. On Saturday, I was decorating easter eggs. I managed to drop an egg, and as I went to catch it I managed to spill an entire cup of yellow egg dye all over the counter, rug, and nice wood floors we have in my kitchen. Yeah, classy. To me, my life is hilarious. I literally wake up every morning optimistic, constantly in that right-before-the-punchline-of-a-joke-about-to-burst-out-laughing type of mood.

I’ll end with a quote from the Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, definitely one of my favorite books. If you’re a hopeless romantic and you want to read a really well written book (as long as you have the attention span to move through both time and space with each new chapter).

“Love the world and yourself in it, move through it as though it offers no resistance, as though the world is your natural element” pg 519

A beginning.

So I've realized that my blog from New Zealand last spring was one of the most fulfilling, healthiest things I could ever do while going through one heck of a change in my life. That you can find at http.chelsearoy.blogspot.com if you'd care to read it, but I'd start at the beginning because, well, that's when it starts.

But what is a beginning, really? Just a second more than the second just before? How is it different? Do you breathe differently, have a change in attitude, or wait until somebody allows you to start that period of your life? I'm starting a new journey, leaving behind my undergraduate career to get a masters degree at a new university, with new friends, at a different school in the next state over. But how is it a beginning? Surely the past 21 1/2 years I've been around haven't been a waste. They've shaped this beginning. So more or less, there are no beginnings. There's only just a continuation of before under a new name. Also, commencement. Look it up. It means: a beginning. a start. So just as YOU think you're done in graduating, you're not. You're beginning.

To use a quote I put into my salutatorian address in high school: "As Carlyle said, “Go as far as you can see. When you get there, you will be able to see further.”