Something's Gotta Give

It's Wednesday, but it feels like it's still Monday, it's been that long of a week.

Honestly, the stress is piling up, and it's piling up quickly. Not just with all of the CA shit I have to put up with, but with classes, too.

Classes I'm doing well in:
Basic Newswriting
XDIS (grades-wise, at least. Of what few grades I've gotten back so far, they've all been above 90% save for one, so I'm doing better than it sounds considering my bitching and moaning about it)
Astronomy Lab
French (mehhh, barring he doesn't butcher me for lack of participating)

Classes I need to kick myself in the ass for:
Psych of Sex (because I'm too lazy to study for the few tests we have and there's zero homework points)
Astronomy (because I'm too lazy to even pay attention in the class. It's a crapshoot by now.)

Meh.

I'm lost at this point. I feel like I've lost all sense of caring about college by now, and it all stems from the CA job. And there was a time when they told us that we are students first and foremost--oh bullshit, we aren't students. We're considered staff to Student Services, people we can put to work for stupid shit they don't want to do. It all comes down to one word: RETENTION. Sometime they're going to have to realize that freshmen don't stay because Student Services is catering to their every whim, it's because of the school they go to that determines the majority of this. It can be from lack of respect for fellow students, it could be that the program they're in is crap.

How about this: If you can't retain the CAs you have now, how are you going to be able to retain the students?

There's so much emphasis that 'amg, your CA is your bestest friend in the whole campus! BOND WITH THEM!' that Student Services forget we're just here to facilitate living on your own. Suddenly when were we paid to make friends for you? What I am starting to forget is that these aren't just freshmen, but they're over 18. They're close to my age (and in fact, I know of at least one resident on another floor that's 3 days older than me), and they're what we would consider adults. They aren't children, despite our initial reaction to calling them our 'kids'. But the way we go about things, creating all this programming to get them involved and doing things around campus, I feel morel like SS doesn't trust the students to be responsible adults--more like these are the same high school students who need so much structure and assistance that they need to hold hands with someone through everything. That someone is us CAs. And so because of that, I have to hang around the dorms, waiting to cater to their every whim.

And yet, I'm somehow still a student. A student with my own set of friends, my own set of extracurriculars, and my own set of priorities. With the way things are going, I have none of those. All thanks to this fucking job.

Now today when I was at the U.Brew, I had one of the workers there tell me that I was her favorite North Complex CA....and I had the feeling that she was sincere about it. It hasn't dawned on me until today that no, I haven't done a shitty job as a CA, but there are certain people who've made it clear that I'm doing a good job, and said it to my face. Those people have been residents (both my own and others), CAs (mostly from Beede, go figure), and Hot Canadian Bacon.

Not my own hall director, Kristi.

Oh, she tells us all that we're doing a good job through emails and letters and stuff, but that's the problem. She's never told me, directly, to my face that I'm doing a good job. And I'm not the only Mick CA that has noticed how impersonal Kristi is with certain things. Yeah, this is one of them. :/

Mehhh Astronomy Lab, here I come now...