Maintaining Your Tuftsanity: Laugh It Off

Disclaimer: I feel it is necessary to begin this (my debut as a columnist for The Tufts Daily) with a reminder that I am a 19-year old college student who’s undecided about everything from her major to her favorite ice cream flavor, so any advice I attempt to give on how to maintain your “Tuftsanity” may be completely off-base. Or if you’re a perpetually-frenzied soul like me, perhaps you’ll find something that resonates with you. I truly hope it is the latter.

With that being said, I’m here to offer you only the best of what I’ve learned in my time as a Jumbo thus far. In the past year, I have locked myself out of my dorm room at least 500 times, showed up to not only the wrong classroom, but the wrong building for my first class of the semester (as a sophomore, mind you) and changed my major on a weekly, sometimes even daily, basis. I have declared war on the Joey for never coming through for me and forcing me to run to Davis Square in complete, full-blown panic, only to arrive at the concert venue as the band finished its encore. I have shattered not one, but two iPhone screens in moments of utter clumsiness, and thus I have rediscovered the joys of using a flip phone as my main source of communication in college (I pray you feel my sarcasm). Not to mention the many nights I walked from Tisch to my dorm and back again, debating whether or not to sue all of my professors for the future medical bills I will surely pay to fix the back damage from lugging their ten-pound textbooks around campus.

It’s safe to say this year has been like no other. Despite my many, many ups and downs, I’ve learned more about what it takes to be a full-time Jumbo. If you didn’t gather it from the previous paragraph, I clearly still have a lot to figure out. However, amongst the hustle and bustle of campus, I've discovered the importance of finding the not-so-serious side to it all. I’m sure you’ve heard the whole “college is the time to redefine yourself, put yourself out there” spiel. College is built up to be a time for you to become a hard-core adult, and in turn can become terribly intimidating. But when you’re caught in the middle of the semester, drowning in homework without the time to take a mental health day, having that kind of approach will only counteract all you’re trying to accomplish.

Instead, keep in mind that being able to take a step back and laugh a little at how ridiculous your stress level is will inevitably relieve it. Find the humor in the smaller moments in your day, whether it's from seeing someone trip on a curb or doing so yourself. College will catch you blindsided and make you into a fool when you least expect it; take it from someone who knows. It’s the moments when it does exactly that that will keep you going.