My Last Reflection

Wow, I really can't believe it. The semester is almost over and I can't wait for a month free of work and classes. I can't wait to be home again for a decent length of time. (I also can't wait for m my birthday in 6 days, yippee!!!!) But when I really begin to think about this semester, I am amazed at how fast it has gone by. I have almost made it through my first semester of college. There have been no major fiascoes; there have been no serious fights with the ones I love; I have been home a few times and I have morphed into some alien creature. I survived being homesick and wondering what the hell am I doing here. I managed to move away from home and not fall apart. I have learn to live on my own even if is only in a pseudo-independence. I have reached the point where college has just become part of my routine; it has simply become part of my life. To many of you this may seem sappy and sentimental, but this is really what I have gone through. It may sound really dramatic (I'll admit that it does sound dramatic), but in many ways it is very odd to be living the life that you have waited for for a long time. In many ways, this semester has been so surreal. This semester is not what I had imagined all four years of high school when I couldn't wait to go to college; I had imagined this perfect experience where there would be no problems in my life. I could have never imagined what my first semester has been like. When I imagined college, I was looking at everything through rose colored glasses. I had never thought that my first semester would be hard, complicated, and painful. This is not to say that this semester has been horrible, it has been great, but when I was thinking about college, I forgot about reality. I have realized that I have changed in terms of how I live; I am definitely used a lot more freedom and independence now, but who i am has not changed. So many people have told me that you change so much when you go away from home, but I think that is less common than most people realize. Yes, it is true that you can start over, reinvent yourself, or find yourself, but I feel that those things happen when you don't have an idea of who you are or when you really want to change. For me college was more of a transition of location and community. I came here not looking to change, find myself, or start over; I came to study things that I'm interested in and to find a place where I would not be the odd one out. I have found the studying part, but granted I still have to figure out the being the odd one out. But I have come to realize that I may be the odd one out but there is no exclusion because of it. One of my brothers said, "Everyone at AU is weird and that's why we come here." And it is totally true. I have had a interesting/great semester, but I am totally ready for a real break. It's not perfect, but yet again I don't believe in perfection so everything is great.