Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Finding your way.
I don't mean to write this post from some tower-o-knowledge. I'm writing it because I've been there, and on my drive home I was thinking, "Hey, that's some serious shit." And we all know how often those truly profound thoughts cross my mind, so I thought I might as well strike while the iron is hot. And on to the point...I was thinking this afternoon, after the world's least productive faculty meeting, about where I was at this moment exactly five years ago, just before I took my first-ever for-real college finals. I was nervous, and rightfully so, after spending a semester wasting god knows how much time on things that I can't even seem to recall even the vaguest details about. All I truly remember is the fact that 3:30 a.m. was my ritual bedtime, and I continually felt as if I were missing out on something if I ever turned in any earlier.
And so after a semester of dorm life, I came home to a holiday break that I don't particularly remember, aside from a fateful fifteen minute stint spent at my dad's laptop while we, collectively, checked my grades. I knew the damage was bad. I knew I could count the time I'd attended my 8:05 French class without taking off my shoes. I was as terrified as a former straight A girl could possibly be. And of course, they were bad. Not terrible, "you're probably going to lose your scholarship" bad, but worse than any other collection of grades I'd ever gotten in my life. But I didn't die, even though I was thoroughly convinced that I would. And I went on to vastly improve my shaky beginnings.
So for all the new little co-eds out there, most importantly Ashley and all her buds getting their first fresh start at college, remember, when you have your very own heart stopping moment sometime during Christmas break, that this is only the beginning. There will be many more late nights and papers that you fall asleep in the middle of and books that you had two months to read yet never seem to get past the first chapter of and pizza and beer and casual sex. This is the first semester of many. Enjoy it while it's still yours.
Heather at 5:55 PM
