A year gone by....

I'm coming to terms with the fact that my freshman year is coming to an end. It seems like only yesterday I was running around campus with a map trying to find my classes, trying to get settled in and blend into a culture that is in so many ways opposite to mine. Orientation week was overwhelming and it was more than once that I wondered if I had done the right thing by coming here. However, as the semester progressed, I got to know people, got involved, got into a routine, found a job and settled down. In a couple of weeks I couldn't imagine not living on campus or rushing to classes and struggling to meet deadlines.

I have met so many great people and a few not so great people. I learned to find my way around and judge people better. I have had classes that I hated and classes that I loved, professors that I would rather not have had and professors that I wish I could have all my classes with, classes that taught me things I never thought I would find useful and classes that I rushed to pick and later found to be an absolute bore. There are things I have come to love on my campus and things I am not so fond of, but wouldn't really want to change. There have always been moments of "what if", but they have gotten further apart as I have learned to find my way.

Something I have absolutely come to love about college is the random moments that can occur, like having a revealing, in depth conversation with people you happen to have breakfast with one day, or meeting someone on the way to somewhere and just cancelling your plans and watching the sunset while pigging on ice cream. I have done things I never thought I would do, seen things I never thought I would see, heard things I never thought I would hear and learned from it all. I recall how overjoyed I was when I managed to go through my first week, and I have the same feeling now that I am approaching the end of my first year.

Looking back on it all, if there is anything I have learned in the year gone by, it is that I have a lot more to learn and I am very much looking forward to it....