First of all:
I am tired.
I am true of heart!
And also:
You are tired.
You are true of heart!
?Dave Eggers, at the beginning of his book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Now:
I have never been so tired.
You have no idea how tired I am.
I truly hope you are not as tired as I am.
?Dave Eggers, at the beginning of an additional section he added to the paperback version of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
The first except is an accurate description of how I felt after midterms the first semester my first year at Georgetown. The second is representative of how I feel now. I’m not sure how true of heart I am anymore.
Everyone here seems tired. Listen to the bleary-eyed conversations on the way to and from Sellinger Lounge or Lauinger Library. Students clutch coffee with death grips, competing for who has more midterms that week, who has slept the least.
Starting this semester, I signed myself up for five classes, two columns at the Voice, a part-time internship at National Geographic, seven hours a week working at the information desk, an LSAT review class and a position on Georgetown’s media board. At one point in time, this seemed like a normal thing to do.
Why? Because I’m surrounded by seniors who are doing all of those things. Everyone is taking the LSATs. Everyone has an internship. Everyone is trying to ace their classes. Everyone is making “plans” and trying to be “successful.” Everyone is going to Career Fairs in suits. When did everyone buy suits? Where was I?
But I do know this: If there are further steps I can take to ingratiate myself with the ever-elusive “the man,” sign me up. I don’t want to be left behind.
But I feel that I am. I am so tired. I am not normal college-student tired. I am crotchety old-man tired. I am the wear-gray-Velcro-shoes, eat-grapefruit-every-morning tired. The fatigue I feel from my self-imposed ridiculous schedule is spilling over into an exhaustion of people. I am tired of you.
As a crotchety old man, I am sick of hearing your gleeful noise. No one uses inside voices anymore. No one even uses outside voices. I don’t need to hear your rendition of “Life is a Highway” or even “Highway to the Danger Zone” outside of my Henle window.
Because I am an old, bitter, man I don’t understand why you go to ‘80s Night at the Tombs or how you play beer pong, better. Since I don’t have any fun-having of my own, I will look down upon yours. Your frivolous fun-having.
Even if you don’t have habits damming your liver, I still will find ways to condemn your healthy lifestyle. You scamper around in baby blue short-shorts flaunting the word “HOYAS.” You’re peppy and you run on a treadmill. You eat salads. I don’t like you.
If I am not overextending myself to my obligations, I am continuing being old, and therefore enjoy watching reruns of Matlock and complaining about the liberal bias in network television news. This does not leave me a lot of time to do the class work that would catapult me to the top of the class. Therefore, I don’t like people that re-write their class notes and organize them in binders. I don’t like the people that participate in class. You seem like you want to be here to learn. But, as I learned walking barefoot uphill both ways to school, in the real world, money doesn’t grow on trees. I am honing myself to get a job. I have no time for your ivory tower academic pursuits.
I need to get some sleep. This used to be fun. I used to be true of heart.
Gina Pace is a senior in the School of Foreign Service and Senior Writer of The Georgetown Voice. This was uncalled for.
