Awake at 2:30 a.m., I paint a five inch cardboard circle in diameter with patterns from the ancient Minoan society. Using a tiny paintbrush, I paint ant-sized brick designs on this circle, which will become the center gathering place of my abstracted city. Candy and straws make up the plan alongside a Dell computer box sitting on its side, the top covered in tin foil. A Styrofoam tube within the box makes up a transport system that carries passengers in this model city to their jobs within the mountain.
As my pre-med roommate enters the apartment living room to escape her four chapters of organic chemistry, the piles of boxes, paints and library books I have accrued is overwhelming. As my roommates, an SFS major and two pre-meds, prepare to mount an intense period of exams and numerous papers, my main concern at this time is the functionality of the high-speed transport system in my concept city.
I love my class, Architecture and Spatial Literacy, and am more than happy to have to design a city for the final project of a course which involves we take field trips around Washington every other week. I have learned much and may even one day consider architecture as a career. Despite all of this, I cannot help thinking that I am not working as hard, and therefore not taking as much from my education, as most other Georgetown students.
I admit that watching others become overwhelmed with schoolwork makes me feel lucky to be exempt from most of the stress of this school. However, a burning insecurity always bubbles up, my inner overachiever chiming in, to tell me that my brain, lying fallow, may never reach its full potential. I do most of the work for my classes-I watch the Brazilian mini-series for Portuguese, I write my compositions for Spanish and I make presentations about culture and customs in my Catalan class. The courses I am taking simply do not demand the same time commitment as other classes at the University.
I know that when we graduate, two of my roommates will go on to medical school, then become practicing doctors. My other roommate will be qualified to take the Foreign Service exam and debate any issue of economics and politics she comes up against. I will be able to speak three romance languages and discuss any major work of art. I am not worried about work after college, because I know something will come up, but I fear that I will not have taken full advantage of my opportunities to learn. I will have learned of life, of culture and a little more about the world, but the quantitative knowledge-computer science and economic policy or the reason Vitamin K is produced in the G.I. tract-will have been barred from my mind’s grasp.
Why did I choose Spanish? Why can’t I suck it up and do some problem sets? I cannot answer these questions, but I do know that when you love something, it comes easily. Just as my pre-med roommate says she prefers taking only science classes because they come easier to her. I do what’s easier. Does this mean I will not deserve my degree because I did not suffer through more than one orgo lecture? Perhaps. But I am also starting to feel assured that if I can write, speak a few languages and talk my way through an interview, something will come up.
My ideal city is a conceptually fluid combination of Mod London and Minoan Crete. Sociologically, it is a priestess society centered around a Mod-influenced Greco-Roman temple. The residents live in overgrown woods on the top of a mountain, and they take the high-speed transport system down into the mountain to go to work. Each division of business and government is at a different level and has windows out of the side of the mountain. I have researched my influences, and am intrigued by the strange symbiotic relationship between the two societies. The twenty or so hours it took to build the city were well worth it-maybe I’ll even include it on my resume as filler. Looking for a job after college, though I may never be able to explain the intricacies of supply and demand, I’ll at least be qualified to move to Brazil, or maybe Mozambique.
