To say that we have grown up over the course of four years would be an understatement, and to be cliche, to say that our education has ended would be a lie. I have experienced so much these last few years that I look back and don’t know how I survived at times.  I literally watched my grandfather die.  I found what love could be and then realized how quickly it could disappear.  I’ve both pulled all-nighters (though part of that can be blamed on my job), and nights were I just didn’t care to study for my exam at all.  I’ve been to Ireland, toured D.C., taken road trips, and found new joys in both East Lansing and Toledo. I’ve lost touch with many friends, gained many more, and reconnected with a few old ones.  I’ve danced, laughed, drank, sang, hugged, and cried my way through many moments.

I recently found an old note on Facebook of 50 of the most important things I learned while in college (so far).  I feel this is worth copying over here and editing and I hope you enjoy this whether you are a college student, almost a college student, or even graduating like me.

1) Money sucks.
2) Teachers are either out to make your life hell, or out to help you grow. They claim it’s both, but in some cases I’d disagree.
3) People are not always what they seem.
4) Scientific articles are best skimmed; if a discussion must ensue, steer the topic towards a general scientific topic relating and you’ll do fine.
5) Calc 2 will kick your ass.
6) Accept every offer someone gives to drive you to class.
7) Your feet will at some point yell at you about all of the walking. See 6.
8 ) Everyone has one good spot to study.
9) At least 40 other people have that same spot as you. Work out a schedule.
10) Buying books is best done with closed eyes and credit card held straight out in front of you.
11) Accept the fact that there just very well might be at least one exam you fail.
12) You get sick about 13.49382 times more than you ever did at home while living in the dorms.
13) People have different opinions. Deal with it.
14) Procrastinating really will be the death of you.
15) Picking your own schedule isn’t as nice as it sounds. It is frustrating to do, and you will change your mind 10 times about a class, need five overrides, and realize you are missing pre-requisites at the last minute.
16) Eat when you can. Half of the time your classes will be scheduled right over lunch time. Take a snack.
17) Facebook is the best way to check up on that cute guy/girl sitting across the room from you in lecture.
18) And the best way to communicate with your roommates.
19) College makes you lazy.
20) Community bathrooms aren’t as bad as they seem. Less cleaning for you, and they are kept nice. Most of the time.
21) Snow days just don’t happen. Stop moping around, and go out and buy yourself a second coat.
22) While entertaining at first, those frat boys across the street from your dorm quickly get annoying.
23) Graduation can ruin friendships you have worked hard to build up.
24) Some cafeteria foods are best just admired, and not tried. Tatter tot casserole falls under this category.
25) Your i-Pod turns you anti-social.
26) Some days it’s best not even to attempt to do your hair. It will most likely rain during your walk to class.
27) Your 15 minute walk to class seems like much longer; especially in the cold. See 21.
28) Compromise can be the only way to finish a project, live with roommates, negotiate with a professor, or convince yourself to study.
29) Accept the fact that you will slip on ice, at some point.
30) Face your fears. You will either be disappointed, or rewarded. But face them.
31) You will most likely break something in chem lab. Do yourself a favor and make it something cheap, like a test tube.
32) Foot or knee injuries are detrimental to your entire health.
33) Someone’s cell phone will go off almost every lecture you have.
34) Once that cell phone goes off, at least 20 people can be heard pulling out their cell phones to put them on silent, thinking “glad that wasn’t my phone that went off…”
35) Take time to walk around campus. You may find that one spot you’ve been looking for. It just is hidden.
36) A late night buddy is a necessity.
37) That puddle that you are approaching is most likely 5 times deeper than you expected. Walk around it.
38) Beware the bikers. Not motorcycles. Of course not motorcycles. I mean those lovely bikers who ignore the bike lane on the road, and instead decided to come up behind you on the sidewalk.
39) The library is louder than your dorm during exam times.
40) The first warm day of the spring semester should be spent outside, because the next time it gets warm will be finals week.
41) You will lose your id, borrow a temporary one for five dollars, only to find that id ten minutes later.
42) Every letter you get in the mail is like Christmas.
43) Waiting until you desperately need to do laundry is a bad idea. There is a good chance that 20 other people had the same idea as you. Those 8 washers and 8 dryers just won’t do it.
44) But if you do wait until last minute, a sweatshirt will last for a few days, and no one questions the fact that you wore that same one yesterday.
45) There will always be one class that is completely worthless, but the one day you decide to skip is the most important day of the entire semester.
46) Set more than one alarm. Especially on exam days. You will probably stay up too late studying, and in the morning won’t wake up to that one alarm you set.
47) Make new friends. Don’t hole yourself up in your room.
48) Squirrels are friendlier than cats if they think you have anything worth eating.  They don’t “like” you. They are just well trained.
49) Avoid creepy vents in the ground. They make some weird noises at night. Who knows what lives down there.
50) Never let your morals waver. You will change, and grow up, and learn new things. But always stick to what you believe in. It isn’t worth changing who you are for college.

I’m sitting in my grandpa’s hospice room stealing internet and stealing time.   My parents left a little while ago, but I can’t bring myself to drive back to school yet.  I feel so torn between three different worlds right now.  In one world, I’m a college student just fighting to make it to graduation and go on to the career of my dream-world.  In the second, I’m trying new things and meeting new people.  I’m in a great place with a certain person, and holding so tightly on to the fact that it doesn’t have to change.  In the third and final world, I’m just playing a massive waiting game…waiting for graduation….waiting for things to fall apart….waiting for a sadder world without my grandpa….waiting to lose touch with friends as we all go our own ways.  My emotions tear me apart as I switch back and forth, and I long to be back in Ireland where it felt like a whole new world with too many experiences to let me get torn apart like this.  In Ireland, it was adapt or be left behind without a plane ticket.  I was my own support system.  Here, I spread myself too thin and am worse for the wear for it.

I am sitting in this room where people come to die, and waiting.  I’m going to miss my grandpa.  So much of who he is and was is inside me.  Some of my earliest memories are him teaching me to play checkers, teaching me bad jokes, how to crack open walnuts from the tree in his yard.  I can tell he’s just tired of this sickness game, and I am in no position to blame him for that.  He’s slowly just letting things take their toll, and he’s still smiling and joking when he can.  I need to stop writing now.  He’s stirring, and I’m crying. Not a good mixture.

‘Cause there’s no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I’m thinking of what Sarah said…that “Love is watching someone die”

Yesterday evening a sunset broke my heart more than any guy ever has.

I’m not sure whether to be proud of that fact, saddened by it, or content with it.

I feel that I came back from Ireland to see that things haven’t changed one bit.  I’m sitting at the same desk in a dorm that I’ve lived in, sat in, worked in, cried in, laughed in for the last few years.  Classes start tomorrow, and I’m hardly prepared.  I can honestly say that when people asked me if I was excited to get back to State this year, that I said no.  I find myself hating this school a little bit more every day.  Maybe it is my degree program’s fault for giving me an advisor that made it impossible for me to get excited about some classes.  Maybe it is just the drain of knowing that this campus means grades and drama and long hours of work and studying.  Maybe it is just that I’m sick of the weather of Michigan.  Whatever it is, MSU is not the place for me anymore.

I am excited to be living in an apartment this year with three of my best friends.  Across the hall are four more of my best friends, and I hope that the drama stays at a minimum, and the laughter stays at a maximum.  We all are going such different routes in life that I feel this is our last real time to be so together.

Ireland was such an adventure, and exactly the change that I needed.  I do miss it though.  It was a place where I could start over, and be who I wanted to be while not having to deal with the drama that comes with knowing people for a long time.  I missed home, but not to the extreme that I thought I would.  I truly did need the break from my life.  I pushed myself to an extreme, and I came out shining brighter than I have in a while.  I just hope I can keep the light going through this year, long enough to get me out of this school and into the world.  I still have no idea where I will end up and I am more than okay with that.

I finally feel as if I did not waste my past two months jumping through pointless hoops of fire.  I may dislike my advisor more than ever, but I finally feel excited about an outcome of meetings with him.  After many, many, many fights, and after finally finding a woman who actually worked WITH me, I now have an internship set up in Ireland for this summer.  The scary part?  I leave in seven days.  I can not even describe how unprepared, terrified, excited, apprehensive, eager, curious, ___insert emotion here____ I feel.

I have never flown; that will be a first.

I have never ridden in a taxi; that will be a first.

I have never been outside of the country; that will be a first.

I have not lived without a phone in a long time; I will only semi have a phone.

I will have limited internet.

I will be alone.

But I will have adventures, a blog, memories, a journal, books, travels, hopefully meeting up with John, etc.

What would you write?

Dear Aly,

I am not writing this letter to you from the Future, or even from the Past.  I am writing this to you from the Now.  Things have been wearing on you, and I’m starting to see the signs of it.  You are so good at falling back into yourself that sometimes you forget how to get out.  I’m here to make sure you remember where the footholds are.

How are you doing?  I know that things have been rough lately, but things have also been more glorious than you ever could have imagined.  You are living in such a time of change that all you can do is make a difference.  I know that  you do not regret many things in life.  As for those few things that you do regret: why?  Why dwell on things that have gotten you to where you are now?  You live in a world split by intolerance:  people hate people for things, and the people hate the people who hate them for passing judgment!  Why add to the negativity by being intolerant of yourself?  Whenever you feel something could have gone better, just remember that it already has happened.  All you can do at that point is look ahead, whether it be for a solution to solve a problem you just created or to just move on and walk away.

Now listen carefully; I only want to say this one time, and I want you to remember it for the rest of your life.  You are not an ordinary girl.  You have your dad’s wit, your mom’s personality, and a flare for life that you are just learning to embrace.  Sure, things get you down.  But it’s always temporary and you find a way back to the surface, even if you have to claw your way up.  You walk with your head up, and you smile at anyone who might return the look.  Keep going.

I know it depresses you that you will lose friends after college.  It won’t be abrupt, but it will happen just like it did after high school.  Distances grow, lives change, and new people are incorporated into everyone’s schedules.  But try not to focus on that for now.  Embrace these great people while you have them, and hope that they go on to bigger and better things if they do move away from you.

Speaking of college: it is not everything.  I know that grades can wear away at your very core, and studying takes away any sanity that you have left.  Yes, school is important, but it is not everything.  Get out into the world!  Experience things and learn facts beyond what a textbook can tell you!  Challenge your curiosity.

One last thing, Aly.  Open yourself up.  I know how easily you shut down and walk away from things that scare you.  Things don’t always have to be serious, and I know you have operated on that thought for a long time when others haven’t.  But don’t let that keep you from becoming serious if you think you want to.  You know what this is in reference to.  The summer is a long time, but it will end.  Don’t let things slip away like you normally do.

Take a risk.  Be yourself.  Laugh at life.  Keep smiling at strangers.  And above all else: smile at yourself.

With all of my love,

Me.

The sun will come up tomorrow.

Today I called a friend to talk to her, and we got onto a topic that saddened me greatly.

Her story began with  a sleepless night that led to a trip to take sunrise photos at her favorite spot on campus.  When she got there, there were two girls younger than herself already there.  They had the delirious and excited looks of two teenagers who had realized that it is a possibility to stay up all night and they had accomplished it.

I remember one night I decided that I was going to stay up to see the sunrise.  It was early in my college career; I had pulled all-nighters through events at the zoo that I volunteered at, but those were for a ‘purpose,’ even if only for fun with friends.  This was a decision I made spur of the moment with another friend.  I went to his house and we played monopoly until the birds were singing and the sun was kissing the sky.  I remember that elated feeling of the night-time high and the moments before the exhaustion hit.  On several occasions that year I stayed up until sunrise, or close to it, to feel that same feeling.

I look at where I am today, and I feel sad.  A friend just commented about how terrible it is that I’m working a double tonight (11:40 PM until 7 AM) and my response was, “eh I’m used to it by now.”  I stopped after typing that sentence, and reflected on my terrible sleep schedule.  Last night I got…..5 hours of sleep?  I napped for approximately 2 hours tonight, before work.  This entire week I have not been to bed before 3; typically it was 4 or 5.

I miss the days when staying up all night was a novelty.  When I help normal hours of operation, and a sunrise still had an air of mystery.  These days, I’m depressed when I get off of work and the sun is already rising.  It’s just a sign of my age group, though.  I know that in a few years, staying up until 3 will seem like a blasphemy.

It’s all a circle.

I sit in my computer chair listening to the dying strains of some reality life TV show on in the background.  Someone wants to marry someone while winning enough money to last a few years in this reality of materialism.  I know what I should be doing: in case I forget there is a  yellow piece of lined paper hanging on the wall next to me.  I hear the flush of a toilet in the bathroom next door, reminding me of the lack of privacy anywhere in this thin-walled dorm.

My entire day is spent walking head up from class to class, wondering if any brave stranger will meet my eyes and return my knowing smile.  No one does.  Everyone is lost in their world of iPods and selfishness.  Long gone are the days of friendly smiles and polite tips of the hat.  None of us want to be out walking with our 20 pound backpacks on, avoiding puddles, bikes, cars, and other people but we keep chugging along like we have somewhere we want to be.  Lectures are filled with technology fighting a teacher and the occasional cell phone brings a half-hearted laugh from those near the scene of the crime.  Whispers compete with the clicking of computer keys as students pretend to be taking notes on facebook, updating their status to tell their friends that they “can’t wait for summer break!”  or to remind themselves that they “have a paper due in 12 hours and 34 minutes.”

Across the hall lives someone I don’t even know beyond a first name basis, and even that may be pushing it.  Across the dorm are friends I’ve known for too many years to ignore, yet somehow we are lucky to see each other once a week.  When my roommate and I both sit at our computers with headphones permanently implanted into our ears, we go through the effort of opening up an instant message window just to say hi, or ask if the other wants to go somewhere tonight.  “No, I have a huge paper due this week.”  “I have an exam in 12 hours.”  “I just don’t feel up to it.”

The TV turns off as an automatic timer kicks in, signaling to me that 30 minutes have passed and I still have not crawled into bed for a pre-work nap.  When I get to work, I will sit in a chair and work on homework until I hear the signaling whoosh of a door opening, or a light tap on the window if I have missed that whoosh.  I will look up and use a smile that usually doesn’t quite reach my eyes, and take the offered ID they hold out towards me.  The ID will gain a hasty look before I swipe it through a box that may or may not work correctly the first time, but I will already be pushing the door open before the second, third, fourth swipe that will tell me what I already know.  I will smile once more as I hand back that magnetic ID and I will repeat the same message that everyone gets to hear from me.  No matter how quickly they are going to bed, I hope that they “Have a good night!”

I turn from that momentary human contact and retreat back into my books and papers and movies waiting for my attention, until it all repeats.

It all repeats itself.

Diary or a blog?

People use them for gossip, their personal lives, technology talk, politics, rants, praises, work, and so much more.  They are a place to escape to and to post your thoughts.  It is not a diary; diaries are a personal reflection where you put the good, the bad, the downright ugly, and the beautiful moments that happen.  You do not have to censor yourself, or put up a front.

A blog seems like such a different world.  It is where strangers come to unite through common vague thoughts, but intimate details are often left out.  Unless you create a completely anonymous character for yourself, you run the risk of someone you know personally infiltrating this space if you hoped to keep it quiet.

Blogs began as an idealistic way of becoming known to the world.  The idea of letting strangers read your witty words, and letting your life be an example to someone else led everyone hoping for the popularity of anonymity.  There is sometimes a difference between pleasing an audience, or writing whatever the hell you feel.  What is interesting is to put the two together, and compare a blog and a diary.  This helps create a picture of the overall person.

Personally, I keep both.  I almost wish I did not, though, because one day these thoughts will probably be lost, or my diary will disappear, and I will be missing half of myself.

We were 21 and invincible

It makes me sad that I probably will not be around for the end of the human species.  I do not mean the end of the world….I believe the world will keep on chugging along.  Just without humans, and/or without any living life form at all.  Not to be morbid or anything……It just will happen one day.  It would be quite the adventure though, being alive at that time.  Especially if it was just the sun going out, and we all had to just slowly die out. I’m not sure why I started with this topic.  This was not the intent of this posting.

I am at the age where all of my friends, and myself, are soon turning 21.  It is an age where on that day you are supposed to act like a moron, embrace alcohol (and maybe a toilet seat or two), and throw inhibitions to the wind before you must act as an adult.  Everyone has the same typical plans for their birthday….going with friends to a bar.  Maybe holding something at their house/apartment/wherever, to have some fun with everyone.  As the last person in my immediate group of friends to turn 21, I must say, it is sad to think that I will miss everyone’s bar celebrations.  I wish friends would maybe make it so that in the middle of the day, or on a weeknight, they could do a bit of a celebration, so that I could at least be present at the bar (so that the bar would let me in) for their ‘right of passage.’  Most celebrations seem to be taking shape at night though.  I guess I’ll rely on people to throw mini parties after (when they may already be sloshed), for me to laugh along and egg them on.  Only 10 months until I can join the masses.

I just am starting to miss birthday parties where you are just with friends, having a good time.