Noise

I loved living in Miami’s res halls all four years; there was always someone around to talk with, someone playing music, dudes slaying 100,000 aliens on Halo and yelling across the hallway, and I continued to make close friends from my res hall right up to my last semester at Oxford.

Now, in my final semester, I live by myself in a one-bedroom apartment that dwarfs my post-dorm-room furniture and sometimes makes me feel like I have enough extra space to hold gymnastics practice in my dining room. It’s pretty cool, or, at least, I feel pretty cool; living by myself is big step, especially in a completely new city. I own a mop, I clean my bathroom, I grocery shop and cook for myself (the only change that makes me hurt for the dorms), and when I come home, it’s just me.

I grew up with two crazy brothers, and we were all extremely loud. Yelling for fun, yelling in fights, fighting for fun...our house was a gong show. These days, I love coming home from college because--even though college is its own fun cacophony--the noise in my house that my brothers and I seem to generate simply by existing in the same place is how I know I’m home. Everywhere else is normal-decibal range, but it’s not home without the noise.

In Chicago it’s the opposite. I can almost hear my school before I see it. Michele Clark Academic Prep Public High School is a bustling, heaving giant of noise. At only around 1000 students, its the runt dog in the fight that you bet on because you see the glint in its eye. It’s got fight, spirit, and when it cuts loose, you just can’t believe the deafening roar. It starts with the twin metal detectors, where students line up to have their backpacks pass through the x-ray and rev up for a day of yelling, screaming, shouting, in and outside of the classroom. If my classroom is ever quiet, I know that either one of the security guards (or Mr. Hickory, the feared football coach) just came into the room, or that I went deaf.

When I come back to my apartment after staying a couple hours after school or after volunteering at a NPO bike shop (more about that to come), I know that I’m home by the silence. This absence of noise and stillness was at first foreboding, but now I recognize it as a necessary part of my routine here, part of what balances the intensity that accompanies every school day. To be honest, it’s much more intense, both the positive and the negative, than I have ever experienced or even imagined. Each day is vicious sine wave of incredible triumph and horrendous failure. My teacher friends prepared me for this, but it’s a ride I could never have fully anticipated.

What’s crazy to me, though, is that I’m not exhausted when I wake up in the morning. Even with more-than-usual sleep (which I’m not getting) I would expect this to flatten me, but every day I get up, and I want more. I’m learning every day, and I’m making the most I can of this opportunity.

Bring on the noise.