Confessions of a Wise Fool

I am a college sophomore (for any British readers, I am a university sophomore). Literally, then, I am a "wise fool."

sophomore-1688, "student in the second year of university study," lit. "arguer," altered from sophumer (1653, from sophume, archaic variant form of sophism), probably by influence of folk etymology derivation from Gk. sophos "wise" + moros "foolish, dull." Short form soph is attested from 1778. Sophomoric "characteristic of a sophomore" (regarded as self-assured and opinionated but crude and immature) is attested from 1837.

-Taken from The Online Etymology Dictionary

It seems like before I came to college, everyone was warning me that it is the freshman year one is most likely to drop out or suffer academic failure. Not I. I made straight A's my whole first year at LSU. You see, I am what is known as an "over-achiever."

I have never made anything less than an "A" on a "report card" or "semester grade report" before. My whole life. All A's. I look back and realize why I might have been perceived as anti-social in high school. I was just that. It's not that I didn't want to be social. It's just that studying was my life. I took divers gifted and honors courses that my work ethic demanded I also get an "A" in. Many nights of very little sleep. Nights my friends I'm sure were movie-watching and playing Halo (I didn't discover Halo till a few weeks ago). I did sometimes procrastinate. I'll never forget reading My Antonia in one night and The Last of the Mohicans in one weekend and Tess of the d'Urbervilles in one weekend. And staying up till 2 am memorizing terms and possible essay answers to Mrs. Enmon's history tests. And pulling what may have been my first all-nighter my senior year of high school building a balsa-wood tower for physics. And staying up all night in 10th grade to write my term paper, note cards scattered all over my bedroom floor. (Actually I got 20 minutes of sleep that night. I went to bed at 5:40 and woke up at 6:00 a.m., and it felt like I'd slept a whole night in that 20 minutes.) That was a great term paper, too: "The History of the Royal Air Force in Great Britain During World War II." I remember getting lost in the research for that project, going to the University of New Orleans library and drooling over journal after journal of military history. Even better was the following year's term paper: "The Khe Sanh Siege." I got so lost in writing that baby, it was scary. I went to sleep at night, thinking how the various connections of my report on the Vietnam Conflict's greatest siege would come together. Of course that was the year of Ms. Schroeder. I was taking English III as a sophomore, when a normal kid would have been taking English II. I truly developed a love of good literature in that class. I could go on and on about spending all night doing Excel documents for Algebra II studies about drugs in Mr. Ballantyne's class. The list goes on and on...

So basically, I thoroughly explored academic success. I was the valedictorian, gave a commencement speech, all that jazz.

I continued with that momentum into college, but I quickly realized something. I've explored the world of academia, and lived the contemplative life, and in general, it sucked...big time. I'm not going to spend my whole college career slumped over textbooks. I will be well-balanced. I will become more social.

Time would tell, I never really was anti-social. It was just that I had stifled my social side. Enter college, the loosening up of me, the discovery of laughter on a regular basis, departing from my youthful days of 'the serious child'.

Now, strangely enough, I am known as an out-of-control social butterfly who will put down his fork at dinner and talk endlessly without being prompted to continue eating, "PLEASE!" I am known as "Bean," a slightly-crazy, live-on-the-edge type guy, someone as unpredictable as the dinner menu at Highland Dining Hall.

Enter today, the 2nd of December, the Year of Our Lord 2005. I awake at 11:45 a.m. I have slept through a Chemistry quiz. The night before after Chi Alpha, I had taken dance lessons with several people in preparation for next week's Snow Ball, gone to Scott's apartment to watch movies and laugh and hang out with people all night...till 4 a.m. Of course, I knew I had a quiz today, so I studied from 4 a.m. till 6 a.m. Ironically, the studying I did early this morning was for naught, as I slept through the quiz. In this same class, I am now hoping for a "B."

This will be my first "B" ever in a class. We're talking, since Kindergarten. This seems comparable to losing virginity or getting drunk for the first time (though neither of these has ever happened). And honestly, it's due to sleeping through too many classes. Due to too many movies, too much laughter with friends, too much staying up late, too much...helping other people out, even.

So, I see the link here. When I didn't have many friends in high school, I did well academically. But I hated my life. Now, the Facebook would tell me I have 332 friends, though many of those are just "acquaintances" that I have met and there are many people not listed on the Facebook that are much closer to me than any "Facebook friend" could ever be. And now that I know a lot of people, I talk to a lot of people. And laugh with a lot of people. And love a lot of people. And ...well, I'm still making pretty good grades actually, probably only one "B" this semester. But...I enjoy my life more.

So where is the balance here? I feel like Solomon. Trying academia, trying friendship, trying laughter, trying sleeping a lot, trying sleeping a little, trying food, trying song. I haven't tried women or many of the low, sinful degrading things he tried, but I'm finding it is all "vanity of vanities" as Ecclesiastes says. Where the rubber hits the road, my academic success doesn't define me. Who my friends are doesn't define me. I'm starting to think that not even a person's interests define him/her. "God breathed into man, and man became a living soul." That is who I am. I am whoever God made me to be. The problem is discovering who exacly I am meant to be.

So this is where I'm at. I still value God above all else, and His call for my life. The problem is not knowing the natural path that correlates with the ultimate spiritual destination. I.e., what the heck am I going to do with this business degree I'm supposedly going to be receiving?! I never have been self-confident, but, dude, man, whoa, I feel my "bachelor eligibility" is suffering majorly here. When a girl asks, "so what are you going to do when you get out of college?", my answer is "i honestly don't have a clue." And that's the honest-to-God truth. I don't have a clue. I'm having a lot of fun in college. I'm leading a Bible study group...it's wonderful, we're all growing in our love of Jesus together. I'm meeting many wonderful people that are inspiring me. I'm learning a good deal academically, although now it looks like I need to balance that aspect out a little more. But I don't know where I'm going with all this. I get scared when I talk to people who've been in college for 5+ years. I mean, all of primary and secondary school was spent trying to get to college. I worked so hard in high school to get scholarships: which I now have: all my education paid for. But now that I'm HERE, ....

...i'm finding that a university is fun, but nothing esoteric. Compared to what I could be doing: starting my own business, being married and having kids, doing missionary work in some obscure location of the world...

...this is a bunch of crap.