In The Beggining

So part deux of the blog is upon us. It seems like there was no time to give a sigh of relief for those of us who went abroad; we're all heading back out again.

But never fear, Kim and I shall dive in and tell you how the water is. My plane for Denver leaves tomorrow (May 21st, for documentation purposes) and I believe she's heading to her boat on the same day. Both of us would have liked a longer resting period, so its up to all of you to down a least one shot of the captain for us. It would mean a lot, especially if it led to some funky sex later on.

As for a summation of the semester, which seems appropriate enough at the moment, let me just say that for whatever life changing experiences we all may have had over our abroad semesters apart, things sure didn't change much. Whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing, I leave that up to you, but let me predict one lesson we're all going to learn this summer. Books and films and papers aren’t going away. We'll all have them in our apartments, or in my case, mansions. There are so many amazing things to be learned in school, and it’s the perfect place to do it, but we will never, and I repeat never live in such close proximity to not only each other, but to 1900 other people within 3 years of our age. (tour guides you can correct me on that number)

I don't think the step into the working world is a scary or bad one; most people fight retirement until they're physically unable to continue their work because they fall in love with that which gives them purpose. I do think, however, that our senior year becomes the 11th hour for tiring ourselves out of immaturity. Graduation will come, regardless of how hard we deny it, so it is up to us to take every opportunity we are afforded in college and exhaust it. For all of us who have been constantly second guessing decisions to try new things or living in fear of rejection or, much worse, the suppression of action in the falsely good intentioned but truthfully weak gesture of never upsetting someone else, we need to stomach these in the name of our last semester of this school.

We're all going to get a taste of the "real world" (which is the stupidest phrase I've ever heard) this summer, and I think it will help us all appreciate what we have, but we have to go beyond appreciation, we have to embrace it. I expect a lot of toasts to our last year; I hope we don't wait until the end to really realize it. No one will leave with the perfect college experience, but remember that we learn from "I wish I hadn't", while the only thing that we take from "I wish I had" is regret.

I hope everyone has the summer of their dreams. See you in Vail!