All posts in: Ben Neal

Uncategorized
09 Jun 2012

10 Things I Won’t Miss About Being In School

It is the eve of my college graduation and I could not be more content staying in tonight and reflecting back on 15 years of education. Yes, Kindergarten counts. When I first started school, I was just barely a person! Seriously – because I was like two feet tall and all I ever wanted to eat was rice and apple sauce and play with my Polly Pockets.  My brain these days is so complex though, you guys. All I think about is Momiji sushi and other blogs. Clearly, not much has changed.

I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity that I did to go through a public school system for most of my life and then to a private Jesuit Catholic university. Elementary opened me up from being a shy young girl to the loud extrovert that I am today. Junior high taught me how to become a student leader. High school allowed me to embrace myself and everything that I’ve ever cared about. And college taught me how to love myself and others.

On a walk last night with Ben and Erin, she had brought up how one of our friends had asked her if she would do [college] all over again. My answer would probably be no – only because I’m ready to move on to bigger and better things, but that also got me thinking about something else. There is a lot that I am going to miss about being in school, but there’s a whole lot of stuff that I won’t miss either:

  1. Seeing my peers wear sweat pants to class. No one does that in the real world. No one should have to do that in school either. If you can put those on, you can put on a pair of denim pants.
  2. “Liking” people in junior and high school. You might as well tell the whole world because no one at that age can keep their mouth shut.
  3. Standardized tests
  4. Physical education
  5. People asking me what I got on this paper or that test. Worry about your own damn work, please.
  6. Rumors getting out of hand. Since when did first base become a home run y’all? It didn’t.
  7. Other girls. Girls. are. mean. Haven’t you seen the Lifetime movies?
  8. Multiple assignments and projects all due at the same time.
  9. Professor pleas written freshman and sophomore year of college
  10. Assigned group projects
People
06 May 2012

{Guest Post} By Ben Neal

As Free As My Hair: My college experience and personal formation as told through my hair.

Hello!  My name is Ben and I have known the beautiful Katie since freshman year.  So when I received a message from her asking if I wanted to write a blog my instant reaction was HELL YEAH.  Since I am senior this year at SU with Katie and I have an abnormal love for reminiscing, I kept coming back to the idea of reflecting on my college experience and the many transitions I have gone through.  Now you may be thinking that relating this to my hair is super dumb or really vain but I think hair can liberating and has allowed me to externalize emotions or internal feelings about my life at the point.  Through this post, I hope you get to know something about who I am and how, at some level, I have let my hair reflect where I am at in my life.

The starting point:  High school

When I got to high school, I had grown my hair out and it is what we now call “the swoop.”  I had the original Justin Beiber haircut and will probably have neck problems later in my life for flipping my hair so much.  People knew me by my hair and people liked it.  Above all though, I liked it.  But I think at the core of who I was at that point was trying to “fit in”. Even though I had so much fun in high school, I definitely was trying to just fit in.  Not make any waves.  Just get by.  The swoop was safe (and warm since I have really thick hair).  I had the swoop for most of high school and any haircut I got was either a variation of the swoop or ended up returning to what the swoop originally was.

Picture 1.  The “swoop.”  And yes.  I am wearing a Panic! At the Disco shirt.

Read more “{Guest Post} By Ben Neal”