"For me, [working at the Writing Center] has been quite a journey. I never knew WCs existed until I joined IUPUI because none of my schools or any colleges in India have WCs... so I signed up for the class thinking it would only help me improve my writing. But then we started talking about pedagogy and that practically changed my life." —Varshini, undergraduate writing center consultant
When I was eight years old, I moved with my family from Columbia, Missouri, to Evansville, Indiana. Aside from the birth of my little brother, the move was the first Major Life Change I experienced while old enough to form autobiographical memories, and it wasn’t easy on me.
after i moved i thought i kept seeing some kid from school in random crowds. "why do i miss him?" i asked & u said "maybe u miss everything"— jomny sun (@jonnysun) April 2, 2017
If I made the same move now, I’d document the process on
social media. I’d open Snapchat when I saw a funny sign posted at a rest stop
in Middle-of-Nowhere, Illinois. I’d take artsy pictures of my new bedroom and
post them on Twitter for my friends from back home to appreciate. I’d pretend to be having the time of my life for the likes, even if I hated my new city and
missed my old one.
But this was 2005, and Twitter wasn’t invented until 2006.
Plus, I only had 30 minutes per day to spend on the computer. So instead, I
kept a journal. I wrote about my new house (which was okay), my new school (which
was not okay), and my new life (which I really, really wanted to be okay).
"i just want to go home" said the astronaut.— jomny sun (@jonnysun) October 1, 2014
"so come home" said ground control.
‘‘ｓｏ ｃｏｍｅ ｈｏｍｅ’’ said the voice from the stars.
My journal was a good listener, but it couldn’t respond to
me. And I missed my old friends. See, when you’re seven and you don’t have a
Facebook or a phone and your friends are mostly friends of circumstance anyway,
it’s hard to keep in touch after you move to a new state. When you’re seven, most of your friends are the summer camp kind of friends—you’re inseparable until
you’re forced to separate.
It is okay that things change but when things change while I am softly napping it is actually very scary and I do not know if I can like it?— A bear (@A_single_bear) April 8, 2016
Maybe the move would have been smoother if I’d had access to the internet du jour. Maybe keeping in touch with my old best friends would have been easier if we were more like the obsessively-emailing, compulsively-tweeting adults we are now—and maybe I’d have felt better until I made new friends. Maybe pretending to like my new school and my new town would have convinced me that I actually did, and my parents wouldn’t have sent me to a therapist because they were worried about me.
Sssh, you could keep all these secrets to yourself and absolutely amaze everyone!— Horse ebooks (@Horse_ebooks) September 27, 2011
But I had myself and my words, which weren’t enough
until they were.
Anyway, I’ve never been much of a fan of change.