Becoming a junior in college has proved to be a rather humbling experience for me. Up until my third year of higher education I thought I had the whole college experience boiled down to a simplistic formula consisting of when and how to study and which classes required reading the textbook and which did not. Alas, my harmonious little theory has been snatched away and replaced with self doubt, fear and utter frustration.

Nobody ever said it would be easy. Life isn't fair. Cheaters never win. Many cliches run through my head as I make my way to class each morning, mentally formulating the next twelve hours. When will I eat? When will I work out? When will I read that chapter of my economics book? As I take a look around at the other students chatting carelessly on cell phones and sipping iced tea I wonder if any of them have no idea what they want to do with their lives. I'm beginning to question whether or not I'm good at anything at all or if in my destiny lies a future of grocery store hell. When I reflect upon the many hours of submissive torture I spent in that soul-sucking store I am reminded of the sheer boredom which raped my mind over and over until my shift ceased. But it was so easy. I didn't have to try, I didn't have to juggle many activities at once, I felt neither stress nor pressure.

I'm afraid I am not good at my major. I'm afraid of never getting a "real" job, never having money to piss away on vacation, never breaking free from coupon booklets which pollute the postal system. What if I leave college and become a nobody? What if everyone else is better than me and there is no place into which I fit? People all around me seem to be coasting by yet going twice as far. I believe in hard work but then I think about Bill Gates who never finished school and wonder if this is all futile. Maybe I'm doing all this work and studying for all these tests and volunteering my time only to have come college dropout swoop in and think of something way better than I ever could have managed. Granted, Bill Gates isn't just "any" college drop out, but there's always people saying "It's not what you know, but who you know." Well, I don't think I know anyone, so maybe I just should put up my white flag now.

Come to think of it, someone's always rattling off some moronic quote as a summation for all the world's unknown forces while still trying to be witty enough to place their little slogan on a pair of discounted oven mitts. These people are usually the same people who, as third-graders, replied with "It takes one to know one," when being called names on the playground. Stupid witty sayings.