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It's OK TO FALL By Anissa Richmond, Ithaca College
I tripped in the dining hall, dropping the bowl of soup in my hands, splashing liquid on the floor, causing three innocent students to slip and fall, one of which was carrying a piece of cake, which flew into the air and settled down firmly on my lap… icing side down. The incident happened in slow motion, and it was almost as if I was having an out-of-body experience. I saw myself fall, and watched the events that took place afterward as an outsider, and it seemed as if I was helpless to change things. But as embarrassing as the entire incident was I'm glad my extreme klutziness made me trip that day. My tripping helped me make friends with the people that I made fall. My tripping forced me to break out of my shell and make most of the situation. And as much as it sucked at the time, the most memorable thing about the experience wasn't my mistake, but the events that followed. My fall that day in the dining hall was a lot like freshman year. I went into college with grand expectations of what the experience would be like. Television and movies set up a stereotype in my head of what college life should be like. I thought I knew what to expect when it came to academics, social life and everything else. But college turned out to be nothing like I expected. I lost ridiculous hours of sleep during my freshman year. In college, it became increasingly apparent to me that there aren't enough hours in the day. I spent the majority of my time at night awake, trying to get work done. All-nighters became the norm, and it was expected that I would be awake until all of my work was done. Now I am a master at working on less than three hours sleep, and I know exactly how long the snooze button on my alarm clock will last before it rings again. (Two minutes and 15 seconds, if you're wondering.) I became an incredible multi-tasker during my first year in college; it was the only way I could survive. It was important how I allotted my time, and I had to make sure to fit in academics and extracurriculars in my schedule. A to-do list is now my best friend, and my iCalender basically runs my life. I know how to write a paper, while simultaneously creating an ad campaign and watching an episode of Gossip Girl. Just like my fall in the dining hall the events of my freshman year were somewhat unexpected and scary. There were times when I had ridiculous amounts of fun, laughed until I cried and created lasting memories. There were times when I counted down the hours until I could finally go home and was so homesick that I called my house knowing there was no one home just to listen to my mom’s voice on the answering machine. The times I loved college overlapped with the times that I hated it--melting together and becoming inseparable. There were times that it seemed as if the year was moving in slow motion. But the pace picked up, and I was helpless to change it. All the good stuff and the bad stuff led me to tumble here, at the end of this leg of my educational journey. I now sit (metaphorically, of course) on the floor of the dining hall after just tripping, with cake in my lap, embarrassed but smiling at the incredibly awe inspiring thing I had done. I didn't mean to end up here, and I know that if this same event were to have happened to me last year, I would have died of humiliation. But now, as an almost-sophomore, I am proud of my fall, my klutziness, and that I made it through my freshman year. Past articles
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