I wish I was a better writer, which is almost the dumbest
thing a college student could say, considering I live in one of the few places where
writing classes regularly meet only a few hundred yards from my bed. On a more
general level of irony, I attend a liberal-arts school, which includes by
definition a mission to equip its students with the tools to communicate ideas
effectively. It’s my own fault that I’m not a better writer. The explanation is
quite tidy: the combined effect of coming to Calvin with English credits and
choosing biochemistry as a major conveniently removed English from my
curriculum. For three years, I was both relieved and slightly proud of this
convenience. Only recently has my evasion of English come back to haunt me.
I am guilty of wasting time, which, I have discovered, is
not a victimless crime. I’m awkwardly committed to finishing the things I
started at Calvin, which don’t include becoming a better writer. They include
taking science classes, captaining the swim team, playing in three bands and
working in the Service-Learning Center. Not a waste of time, per se, but one can
question the feasibility of it all. I can’t shake the fact that I’m only a
passable biochemistry major, an often-aloof captain, an often-passive bandmate,
and an often-exhausted-lying-on-the-floor Service-Learning Coordinator. I have
chosen to divvy myself up optimistically. The pieces fail to satisfy. Each one screams
for more of me.
I am fully aware that I have changed markedly in almost every
aspect of my life. Swimming no longer keeps me at Calvin, though it was once
the deciding factor to staying here. Though I used to consider grad school in
neuroscience a foregone-conclusion, now I plan to pursue a life creating and
performing music. Through a growing phase abroad in Hungary, I found a new
interest in social justice and a call to be faithfully present in my particular
place in society. My semester in Hungary, with its fermenting cocktail of
countercultural ideas and people, ultimately led me to the Service-Learning
Center.
I know that I will better understand and appreciate my time
at Calvin in retrospect, but it provides little consolation right now. The
sea-change that occurred about a year ago (while in Hungary) may have reversed
my course at Calvin, but there is a lot of ground to be made up. I feel myself
hurtling towards the end of my Calvin education, but I don’t feel any conclusions
coming into focus. My life is accelerating, but, as the Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle states, the current moment is too short to accurately determine the
direction of change.
