Dear Sarah,

I am a college sophomore who may be flunking out of school within the next week or two.This has been building for a couple of years and involves a few different issues, so I’ll just give you the abridged version, which will still be pretty long — sorry.

I was a top student before college.In general, the schoolwork was fairly easy, I enjoyed school and learning, and I did well at it and in my extracurriculars, even though keeping up with everything was exhausting.I graduated as salutatorian and enrolled in an elite New England liberal arts college that I thought I’d love.I had a vague desire to take a British-styly gap year, but I never seriously considered it because, well, nobody actually does that here.

So I went to college somewhat burned out from the daily grind of high school and my summer job, had some mediocre classes and profs, and didn’t make new close friends or talk to profs, as I have always been shy.After a month or two, I stumbled across fan fiction on the internet and began using it as a way to escape the work I wasn’t prepared for instead of getting help.This got progressively worse throughout the year.By the end of freshman year, I was hiding out in my room for a week, reading fan fiction and eating snack food and avoiding people while not writing my papers or studying for my exams.Only by the grace of God did I not actually fail anything.

Over the summer I toyed with transferring, but I figured my grades wouldn’t get me in anywhere but community college, and the problem seemed to be me, not the school.I knew that going straight back to school would just end in disaster, so I withdrew for a year and basically took that gap year.I did an Outward Bound semester in the fall, which is hands down the best decision I have ever made.In addition to having tons of fun and adventure, I learned a lot about myself and got over most of my shyness and self-consciousness.By the time the next summer rolled around, I was actually excited about going back to school.I had a wonderful summer job in a national park, made some great friends, and came back intending to have a good year.

Well, the road to hell…right?I think the internet thing was more of a habit/addiction than anything else, but I got partly back into the cycle, didn’t do a couple of papers or turned them in really late, and ended up with two good grades and two bad instead of four fairly bad ones.That put me on academic probation; if I get another D, I’m out.I picked a major that I like, unplugged the internet in my room, and did fairly well until the week after spring break, although I wasn’t all that happy.I fleshed out some of my problems with the campus and again considered transferring to a totally different kind of school.Then I hit a paper topic that drove me nuts and I felt unable to answer, and everything went to hell again.After a week and a half, I managed to pull myself together, which was major progress, and kept my head above water.I didn’t get ahead on any of the big projects, though, so when the end-of-year crunch hit, I folded again.

So right now, I’m a combined 1.5 weeks late on two important papers that I’m not close to finishing.The professors have already cut me a lot of slack from the first time I did this.They think I’m very intelligent and don’t get why this is happening (not that I do, either!). I know that I will be kicked out of school if I don’t do this work, and it might even be too late already, yet I still can’t seem to muster the willpower to write.I have some big issues with the school and how people live life here.The main thing is that I have these dreams of reading all sorts of books, both current events and classics, and just learning and talking about things, but I can’t do that here. Even when those books are assigned, there’s too much work to do to actually think about them!You’re expected to give 150% to everything, play a varsity sport, and generally know what you want to do with your life.

But I do kind of like it; there are some great profs and the people are smart (the idiots at my high school who didn’t want to learn drove me nuts), and I have some good friends (I don’t spend all my time online…just when I should be working).

I feel like I still haven’t gotten my dilemma across well, despite the length of this message, so here’s my summary: Are the issues with the school most or part of the problem; would attending somewhere else help?Is it all about the internet problem and I should just suck it up about school?Is this “normal” sophomore slump?Or do I just need a good ass-kicking to make me grow up and do what I don’t want to?

Screwing up in New England

Dear New,

The issues with the school are an excuse.I’m not sure for what, exactly, but I think you’re using the fact that college wasn’t quite what you expected to let yourself off the hook for not dealing with what it actually is.And what it actually is…is work.You need to complete the assignments you’re given instead of blowing them off because they’re not endlessly fascinating every second, or based on things you already know a lot about.The point isn’t to entertain you; it’s to gauge your ability to synthesize new information, and you really don’t seem interested in doing that.

Which is fine, but unfortunately, that’s what college is.It’s a shitload of reading and papers.You can think that’s an effective teaching method or not; I won’t disagree that it’s somewhat doctrinaire and may not work for everyone.But either you should evict the internet from your room, get a tutor and a study group, and get your shit done, or you should leave school until you’re ready to deal with it on its terms.

It isn’t about the school; I don’t think it’s even about the internet, really.I think it’s about you needing to grow up a little bit and learn to engage with situations that aren’t everything you wanted or expected.You expected college to be as easy to excel at as high school was, I suspect; it isn’t, and you’ll need to face that.You expected college to be a lofty exchange of ideas; a lot of the time, it’s just grinding, and as a veteran of Thucydides speed-reading sessions, I feel your pain, but in order to have those meep-and-deaningfuls about the culture that you hope for, you need to immerse yourself in it.Which means forcing yourself to read all of Ivanhoe.That’s the gig.

Commit to finishing school or commit to leaving and doing something else, but the fact that things don’t always turn out like you imagine they will is not going to change.You need to change your approach to that fact to a more realistic and workable one.

(PS: You can actually just Cliffs-Notes the Ivanhoe.)

Hi Sars,

For the past six months, I’ve been pretty much consumed by the idea that I have HIV and don’t know. I see everything that happens as either a sign that I have it or that I might be infecting someone. I had a low T-cell count on my last blood test (the doctor wasn’t worried), and (this is gross) I have fairly frequent yeast infections (what is normal?) and diarrhea. All of which could very likely be caused by being massively stressed out for basically nine months straight.

The reason I’m so paranoid is that I took a Human Sexuality course and was scared shitless by the semi-but-not-so-much propaganda that my professor threw at us. In other words, I know every way you can and cannot get HIV and that I, statistically, have only a slim chance at having contracted it given my non-use of needles, drugs, blood transfusions, and a two-year monogamous relationship.

However, given that three of the four guys I’ve slept with in the five last years were mildly untrustworthy, and the fact that after a year of taking twenty units a semester I have nothing else to do besides worry now, I’m a basket case. It’s pretty much always in the back of my head, and I’ve got to the point where I can’t see or read anything about the disease without feeling nauseous and dizzy.

Every logical part of me, and my close friends, have told me to just get tested and prove to myself that I’m fine, but I’m just too scared. I planned to go today (it’s 5 AM) but I haven’t been able to sleep yet tonight just thinking about it. So my questions to you are: am I being so absolutely paranoid that I should go see a therapist instead? Should I do both? Is it normal to be this afraid of a deadly disease? Does everybody else get this scared about the consequences of the past sexual encounters? Or is it a product of a legalistic Christian mother who put the fear of God into me regarding sex at nine years old?

Signed,
Forgive my run-on sentences, I have a tendency to over-verbalize when I’m terrified

Dear Run,

Yes, you should go see a therapist instead.I mean, you should get tested, too, but that can probably wait until you’ve seen a counselor who specializes in phobias, because that’s what you have, and at root it has very little to do with HIV.HIV is a scary thing to contemplate, but so are a lot of things — getting hit by a bus, dying in a plane crash, cancer, fires.Life is scary and unfair.Most of the time, though, most of us respect the scariness of various things while not letting it take over our daily lives, and you’re unable to do that here.

Go see a counselor and figure out what’s really got you freaking out.I think you might have some issues with your upbringing, and you might be sublimating other stresses or something going on in your relationship…it’s great to be conscientious about your sexual health, but there’s conscientious, and then there’s obsessive, and the latter isn’t really going to help anyone.

Dear Sars,

I have pretty severe clinical depression.I was diagnosed about two years ago, while in my sophomore year of college, and it took another six months for me to get on meds, mostly due to a combination of my own fear, and a lack of support from my family, who felt I just needed to grow a backbone.The issues with my parents have been resolved since then, and I’m staying at school before I graduate one semester early.

The problem is this — I don’t think my medication is working any more.I’ve been sliding back to the point that it’s getting harder and harder for me to work up the emotional energy to even get out of bed in the morning.I lied to my boss today and told her I collapsed from the heat, which is why I missed work.My insurance is being ridiculously stupid, and is refusing to cover out of state fees, so I haven’t been getting therapy at all recently.I’m backsliding fast, and it’s scaring me.I don’t want to go home for the summer — my “friends” there were not at all supportive of me, and I’ll be miserable.Most of my friends at school were a year older, and they’ve already graduated, and have entered the real world.I feel like I’m clinging to them, as I’ve kept calling them for help ever since they’ve left. I feel like I’m failing them, and myself, and I don’t know how to fix it.I’ve made a lost of mistakes with friendships over the last two years, some of which is the fault of my depression, but is really the fault of my not being able to handle my life and what’s going on around me.

I really don’t know what I should do.

Help me, Sars, you’re my only hope.
Lost in the darkness

Dear Lost,

Get up, put your shoes on, go to the emergency room, and get seen on a psych consult.If you have to fib a little and tell them you’re having a whopping panic attack in order to see an MD, do it.Just go.

While you’re there, tell them everything you just told me, and try to get a scrip for different meds and a referral to a low-cost clinic where you can see a therapist…or call you parents and get them to wire you some money so you can see a professional.

This is all a pain in the ass, I understand, and the depression makes it seem like an even bigger one, but it needs doing, which you know, and it will not get any easier if you continue to let it ride, which you also know.Go to the ER and start getting the help you need.

Dear Sars,

My partner and I have been together for five and a half years, and have been living together for over five. We are very happy together, and would like to stay together for as long as possible, maybe even have kids some day…

But there is a problem. After five years of co-habitation we still haven’t sorted out the household chores. The thing is, I DON’T want to end up like my parents — my mother did all the cooking and washing and ironing and cleaning, while my father only cooked once a week on Friday night and occasionally put the rubbish out. My mother obviously resented the unfairness of this situation when I was growing up (she was pretty vocal about it…) and I have no intention of recreating this gendered pattern of behaviour in my own home. My partner agrees with me, as his Mum also did most of household chores in his house too. In fact, I think she did pretty much EVERYTHING in the house i.e. raising the kids, and, unlike my mother, she didn’t complain.

We are not the cleanest people in the world, but we are not the messiest either, and while we don’t give a stuff about keeping up appearances, we also don’t care to live in our own filth. Neither of us enjoys cleaning (obviously), and my partner really dislikes washing up. So we’ve had long conversations about what we want; we want to be clean and we want the chores split evenly between us. We consider ourselves to be a pretty enlightened couple when it comes to gender equality, and this is not an issue in any other aspect of our lives at all…

…but I think we have slipped into a pattern very much like that of our parents’. We both work long hours. Because I start work earlier than my partner, I get home before him too. And this means I usually sort out dinner. And do the dishes. And do the washing. And do the recycling. And do the compost. It’s all stuff that has to be done in order to live like clean, decent human beings. So I do it (and resent it), or I don’t, depending on how I feel at the time. And when I don’t, it quite often goes undone and then piles up into a bigger mountain of chores.

So, of course I am starting to resent all of this. I feel things aren’t fair and that our lives are mirroring that of parents in this area, and I despair because we DO try -– I know my partner really wants things to be even…but it’s just not working. We discuss chores on average about every six months, because that’s when things come to a head. I almost always initiate the conversation, which I don’t enjoy. To add to it, my partner is a tad “anti-rosters,” which doesn’t help, because I think we possibly need more structure in order to fix this problem.

To be honest, I think the issue here is partly that I am very much aware of the unbalanced split of chores and I resent it, whereas it just doesn’t occur to him that he needs to keep on top of things. I just don’t think my partner is as conscious of it as me (of course -– I’m the one doing the chores), which makes sense when you look at the (unconscious) modeling that went on in each of our homes as children…yes, we’ve discussed this. He agrees. But it still goes on…

I want a solution in the end, although I realize this will take time and effort on both parts. In fact, I’d like a clarification of the problem too…so I’d love to get your perspective on this. Any ideas on how to ensure that we can even things up and make me less resentful would be awesome — a cleaner is not really an option (money and privacy issues) but I’ll try anything else.

Yours sincerely,
The Compost REALLY Smells

Dear Then Buy Some Incense,

You don’t have to pick up that extra slack.”But yes I do or it’s gross!”Okay, then…do it.But if you do it, do it because you want it done; be glad it’s done; and let it go.Don’t resent it.If you don’t want to do extra, don’t; if you want the chores done more than you want to make a point, then let the point drop.Period.

Your partner isn’t slacking in order to enforce gender roles; he’s doing it because taking out the trash is annoying, and he doesn’t particularly feel like it.It sounds like you can empathize, so…decide which is more important to you, the equality or the chores getting done, and live with it, because nothing else is going to work.”But –“Yes, I know, you want it to be fair, but your partner agrees with you on that, that you shouldn’t perpetuate the girl/boy split, so consider that argument settled and over.

I have gone through this before, and it helps that I can tolerate a high level of disorder without feeling compelled to do anything about it, but there are certain aspects of housekeeping that really bug me if they aren’t done and if I could not get the guy in question to care enough to deal with it?I did it.I did the dishes; I cleaned the toilet now and then; I policed the fridge for furry food.And when it came time to scrub the counter or deal with his sweaty socks, I was on the couch reading a book, because: not my problems.

It may be time to redivide the chores, not along girl/boy lines but along “whatever”/”AIIIEEEE!” lines.You want dinner on the table on time?Make it. You don’t mind if there’s laundry on the floor?Step over it.Do what you care about and leave the rest, but whatever you do, do not make it about how much he cares about and respects you, because it isn’t about that.It’s about how housework blows.

Find a way to deal with it that you can live with, share that way with him, and try to rearrange things a bit so you’re working together instead of competing.

Dear Sars,

I’ve encountered a situation repeatedly over the last
couple of months, and I would love to know your
thoughts on the matter.

I grew up in North Carolina, and most of my family
still lives south of the Mason-Dixon line.I went to
school out of state, and got a job up north.When I
moved, I acquired a new set of friends, many of whom
were prep-and-Ivy-League-educated and are currently
grad students in a variety of lofty institutions (I
live pretty much equidistant from MIT and Harvard).

The new friends aren’t the problem — it’s the
friends-of-friends who are driving me crazy.It seems
like at almost every party or social gathering I
attend, I hear some kind of derogatory, nasty comment
about the south: the ignorance, the stupidity, the
laziness, whatever.These comments are usually from
people whose entire experience of my home comes from
their drive from the airport to Hilton Head.

I’ve tried ignoring it.I’ve come back a few times
with something to the effect of: “Wow, you must have
spent a lot of time in Alabama to be able to make that
kind of statement!”Sometimes I even crack Damn
Yankee jokes.None of these responses (or lack
thereof) are particularly satisfying.

I’m hoping that you might have a suggestion for me
that I haven’t considered.How should I deal with
these…Yankees?

Sincerely,
Cranky Redneck in Boston

Dear Hahvahd Yahd,

Every part of the country has to deal with that crap.I’m from Jersey, so believe me, I feel you; not ten minutes ago I had to explain to someone, for probably the five hundredth time to date, why the “Which exit?” joke isn’t really funny.You live in Boston, they bust out the accent joke.You live in West Virginia, you fuck your sister, who’s also your cousin.You come from Texas, you have to hear a bunch of “everything’s bigger in” jokes and get blamed for Bush.

I usually go with correcting whatever stereotype of Jersey is in play and then changing the subject, because I don’t care that much anymore; it used to really get on my nerves, but if people want to believe that the entire state exists under a foul yellowish cloud of pollution and the beaches are thickets of used needles, well, their loss.I’d suggest the same thing for you; point out that you’re southern, actually, and then just enjoy the awkward backpedaling for a few minutes before you graciously change the subject.

But…people do this, and will never stop doing it, because it’s human nature.So first and foremost, try to stop caring.(And maybe don’t call us Yankees anymore.You live among us now, rude as we are.Heh.)

[10/5/05]

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