1/4 Done? Preposterous.
Here is an end-of-the-year ramble. Enjoy this peek into my scrambled brain.
It’s been a week since I’ve been finished with my freshman year, and I still can’t believe it. Two semesters flew by, and before I knew it, I was bubble-wrapping and packing my rubber duck painting and stuffing my cereal and milk-stained sheets in the bottom of a box to mildew until fall.
B-Buds, my friends’ abbreviation for a club we made up called Breakfast Buddies, convenes at 8:30 each morning, and I’m starting to miss making Banana Ducks and having Beyblade competitions on the tables with our Share-a-Side coins. I apologize, dear reader, for not being able to explain these silly things in my life with more clarity. If you cannot fathom what a banana duck is, I’ll give you an example:
I miss that sometimes people make ridiculous bets. One week I started to get really concerned about my friend Mary Kate because I had seen her wearing the same shirt 2.5 days in a row. It wasn’t an easy shirt to forget, as it was bright red and read “El Club de Espanol, El Besto Clubo de Aiken Higho.” 9 DAYS LATER, having watched her sport the shirt every day, we all found out that she had taken a bet that she wouldn’t wear a single shirt consecutively for a week. She wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what she was doing or why. Eventually they had to stop the bet because Mary Kate was on a roll and would presumably continue wearing the shirt until the end of the semester, when her payoff would be ridiculously high. She came out of the whole thing with $28 and bragging rights. Only someone with true guts works out in a shirt and continues to wear it for days on end while certain people offer to let them borrow their clothing. She could have cheated and slept in another shirt, but she didn’t. True dedication to a pointless cause. Only in college.
Switching gears, it turns out that I can handle the Vanderbilt academics. That has come as a relief to my parents, as after all, that should be the main thing that I am taking from my college experience. Finals are done, and I have returned in one piece, so I’d say, success!
A huge thing that I’ve learned this year is how to set personal goals and deadlines and to be accountable for my mistakes. I know that everyone says that learn responsibility in college, but now I finally understand! Example time: If I don’t do my laundry, it will just sit there for 4.5 weeks until I am forced to wear swimsuit shorts as shorts. I’ve hit the rock bottom once and am not eager to return to those dark days!
This year, I’ve also managed to surround myself with a group of loving, Christian friends who have challenged me to rearrange my priorities and put my faith first in my life. I am so grateful to have people that are holding me accountable to this and who inspire me to pray about my problems rather than gossip about them and save a little time each day for a quiet time with God. To anyone coming into their first year of college or starting another year of college next fall, I would challenge you to think of the upcoming year as a blank slate and an opportunity just waiting to be taken. Your college experience is what you make of it, so if you pour hard work and passion into a new goal or lifestyle, you are going to get something wonderful out.
One thing that I can’t stop saying that’s really starting to bug my family is how much I miss Vandy and all of my friends. I guess you don’t really realize how set you are in a routine until you leave abruptly. It’s alright though, because I’ll be back for Round 2 in 4 months! Here’s to hoping that I live until then!
P.s. Now who am I going to teach the Hoedown Throw-down to? Samantha problems.