May 13, 2008

Are You Ready?

I found this from Brittany's facebook and she found it somewhere. This is so realistic and i think everyone should take the time to read it. makes you think about college and everything.



A year has passed and now we stand on the brink of returning to a world where we are surrounded by the paradox of everything, and yet nothing being the same.

In one week we will reluctantly give hugs and fighting the tears, say goodbye to people who were once just names on a sheet of paper, to return to the people who we hugged and fought tears to say goodbye to before we ever left.

We will leave our best friends to return to our best friends.

We will go back to the places we came from and go back to the same things we did last summer and every summer before that. We will come into town on the same familiar road, and even though it has been months, it will seem like only yesterday. As you walk into your old bedroom, every emotion will pass through you as you reflect on the way your life has changed and the person you have become. You suddenly realize the things that were most important to you a year ago don’t seem to matter so much anymore, and the things you hold the highest now, no one at home will completely understand. The memories and the stories from school won’t mean anything to anyone at home and yet you resent them for that, they can’t share that happiness with you.

Who will call you first? What will you do your first weekend home with your friends? How long before you actually start missing people barging in without calling or knocking? Who will get pizza at three in the morning with you now? How long until you adjust to sleeping alone in a room again?

Then you start to realize how much things have changed, and you realize the hardest part of college is balancing the two completely different worlds you now line in, trying desperately to hold on to everything all the while trying to figure out what you have to leave behind. In the matter of one day’s traveling time, we will leave our world of living next door to our best friends, walking across campus to eat, instant messenger, 8:00 AM classes, and the perpetual procrastination, to a world that will seem foreign to us despite the fact that we lived in it for eighteen years.

But it is different now. We now know the meaning of true friendship. We know who we have kept in touch with over the past year and who we hold dearest in our hearts. We’ve left our high school world to deal with the real world. We’ve had our hearts broken, we’ve fallen in love, we’ve helped our best friends overcome depression, stress and death, and we’re stayed up all night on the phone just to talk to a friend in need. There have been times we’ve felt so helpless being hours away from home when we know our families needed us, and there are times we know we have made a difference.

One week from now we will leave. One week from now we take down our pictures and pack up our clothes. No more going next door to do nothing for hours on end. We will leave our friends whose random e-mails and phone calls will bring us to laughter and tears this summer. We will take our memories and dreams and put them away for now, saving them for our return to this world.

One week from now we will arrive. We will unpack our bags and have dinner with our families. We will drive over to our best friend’s house and do nothing for hours on end. We will return to the same friends whose random e-mails and phone calls have brought us to laughter and tears over the year. We will unpack old dreams and memories that have been put away for the past year.

In one week we will dig deep inside to find the strength and conviction to adjust, to change, and still keep each other close. And somehow, in some way, we will find our place between these two completely different worlds.

May 12, 2008

"People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built."- Eleanor Roosevelt

Can someone please tell me where did the last year go?
Everything’s happening so fast.
It’s like I’m on the highway going 110 into the sunset without intent of stopping.
I just want everything to speed up and slow down all at the same time.

I’m done with my freshman year of college. When did I even start?! Remember when it was freshman year of high school and you thought that went by fast? Well college, goes by even faster. For anyone who is planning on attending the Bridgewater State College, I have four words for you: be open to anything.

As I packed up my stuff on Thursday morning I couldn’t believe it. Looking at the old, empty white walls, seeing my wooden desk completely bare, and staring at my 3ft lofted bed with a vacant blue mattress, I was stunned. I’ve been a resident of 71 Woodward Hall for the last 9 months and in a matter of days it looks at though I had never been there. I remember moving in the first day, scared shitless of everything and as the weeks went by, I began to get used to my new environment of the college world. I began to get to know my roommates Christine and Theresa and ventured the halls of Wood to meet more people. I got the job that I’ve wanted since I first began my college tours my junior year of high school. I was a freshman tour guide, one of the two freshman selected. I was on cloud nine. I began going to parties the first month or so but then I realized that the party scene isn’t really for me every week. I found out that I can have just as much fun sober and remember than getting shitted and not remembering my night through pictures. I learned that the college work load was much harder than high school and I actually had to study in order to succeed. And I learned that it is quite possible to keep a relationship with a significant other when it is regarding the long distance.

As the year grew on I found myself completely comfortable in my triple dorm. I had my own space and was content. Friends on the other hand could be a different story. From the beginning of the year to the recent ending I can say I’ve hand a handful of lasting friendships. Others who I thought were my friends really weren’t. They never really cared about what I was doing, how I was feeling and never held conversations just to pass the time. I thought we were in college but somehow it seemed like I was in high school again with the drama at times. But I held my head high and realized that “the people that want you in their lives are the ones that you want in yours.” I got incredibly close with one of my roommates, the one who I thought I wouldn’t get to close too, and I became distant with the other, the one that I though we had so much in common with at the beginning of the year. But what one has to realize is that people change and life goes on, and that’s all you can really do.

What I’ll miss the most; well the list could go on forever. Some things I never thought would really impact my daily life, has in fact made a difference. I’ll miss my morning breakfasts with Devon, where we’d go to Tilly at 7:15 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 8:20 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday s. And how we would get really excited if they had chocolate chip pancakes on Friday mornings or had the mini oranges. The Wednesdays lunches that consisted of me eating 3 taco’s just because they were my favorite. Laughing non stop with Theresa about nothing important, usually we were procrastinating about school work that we didn’t really want to do. Having talks about moving sheep? Bumper stickers, making fun of things, yo mama jokes, and how I talk to her in a different language while I sleep. Ok ill stop we have too many jokes. Thursday heart to hearts with the girls when everyone else is out. The sun waking me up in the early morning because my bed is placed in just the right spot, making me instantly happy. These are just a few of what I’ll really miss, and its sad.

Walking out of Woodward Hall, I was reminded by Allie that I am no longer a resident of Woodward Hall. Not only will I never be a resident at Wood but I will no longer ever JUST be a resident. As of next fall, I will be a Resident Assistant in Durgin, the other freshman dorm. The roles have been reversed. Ill be the one doing all the hallway decorations, the name tags on each door. Ill be checking in the freshman on move in day, and I will know exactly how they feel. With their wide eyes and brains going a mile a minute, trying not to pretend their nervous but in all reality they are. But my time has passed; my freshman year is over and done with. I had such an amazing experience all along the way and those are the memories that I will always have. Because in fact, I will never be a resident of Woodward hall again, my empty desk will be filled with other items, my vacant bed won’t be vacant and my white walls will be covered in another freshman girl’s life. I was just apart of the building for such a short time but has impacted me greatly. 3rd floor love <33
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