I just received an email saying that I am approved for graduation this coming May 2015. I will have completed my major in Interdisciplinary Arts and my minor in English. I will be walking down the graduating aisle of my college with classmates I never really talked to unless we were in class together. I'll be surrounded by countless families with pure unadulterated happiness that tears will be spilling.
So much has occurred in the four years of college that I've had the pleasure of taking. Of course, I had my bad spots but the majority of my memories here have been happy ones. It's where I stopped being a childish adult and started thinking more logically and more in-depth about situations, to become a "real" adult. It's where I've made countless friends that I will never forget. It's where I have made memories that have made me laugh and cry and pissed off. It's where I've worked endlessly and tirelessly on projects that could've been avoided doing in one night if I was just acting as my age and did it a few weeks in advance. It's where I went from playing nearly no games to playing so many games.
...wait, that last one doesn't count.
Honestly, with everything going on, I feel like this year, my senior year, has flown by. There have been so many happy moments in my life this senior year and there will still be more in the coming month and a half. There will be so much work to do but I will put my heart into every bit that I can. I have friends who constantly come over to hang out and play video games, watch Netflix, play Cards Against Humanity, make styrofoam Pokeballs and just make happy, fun memories with; I never really had that the other years. Ethan and Alex have given me so much happiness this year that has outgrown nearly everything else in my college years. We've spent nights where all we do is just talk about anything we can think of; we go out for walks in 15* weather with our phones out to play a game; we dance our asses off and sing our hearts out. There has never been a dull moment in this year of college.
...and yet, in a month and a half, I have to say good-bye to everything I love here. To all the people I've made friends with and spent time with. To the professors who have made me the intelligent thinker I am today. To the clubs that I held interest in but never really went after one or two meetings. To the air conditioning that knows JUST the right amount of cold air to keep me under the covers without having to turn on a fan. To the large amount of space my suite has so I can put up all of my posters without a problem. To the freedom I have here to do what I want, when I want, with or without people, go where I want to go and not have someone breathing down my neck to know exactly where I'm going, what I'm doing, etc.
All of the nights that I've spent in the old Lackhove dorm building, where the bathrooms were down the hall and you could hear people having sex in the showers next to you so you would blast your music just loud enough to ensure you didn't hear it. My first year here, I had three roommates; the first didn't complete the summer course, the second was never in the room, the third was nearly always there but I didn't like her that much. In the months there, I remember seeing a cockroach at least once a week; I named it Fred and I would watch him traverse the ground until I felt like he'd been out enough. It was the year I became a fan of Pewdiepie and Tobuscus a lot more and would be watching their videos every night while I worked on homework. The year I made friends with Jerome, Gabe, Mitchell and some other people; Jerome and Gabe always came over to hang out and just do whatever we wanted! This was also the year that I hadn't been the best college student I could be and would end up working harder the next year.
My sophomore year of college, half of it was spent in the old Lackhove and half of it was spent in the brand spanking new Presidents Hall. As one would guess, I had two different roommates for these times. My roommate in Lackhove was someone I took a liking to; we chatted every once in a while but the majority of the time, she was out with her friend doing whatever she wanted. Once I moved into Presidents, my roommate was, admittedly, a lesbian who also liked to play video games and would have her girlfriend come up every so often on the weekends. I think she and I didn't become roommates the following year because I had accidentally come out of my room to find her girlfriend naked in front of the mirror as I was taking out the trash... This year wasn't my best in social interaction with Jerome and Gabe as Jerome was deep in studies and Gabe was at another college. We still chatted through Facebook but the majority of the time, I was playing video games or watching Youtube videos, drawing on occasion. I had grown a bit better with doing homeworks and studying for quizzes or exams. I still didn't mind being alone the majority of the time but I had wanted to be more social as well as academic-al.
Junior year, I, again, had two roommates. My first roommate was a French foreign exchange student who was rather quiet and out very often. I always played my games a bit too loud or I was loud myself. This year, I had befriended a very good friend of mine, Katherine; I call her by her last name but you need not know everything. Katherine and her roommate didn't hit it off too well; they had multiple disagreements and would get into various arguments that would lead Katherine to come over to my room quite often to hang out until her roommate fell asleep that night. This was the year she and I had made a side account on tumblr for our various adventures as we played through the first and second Assassin's Creed games; this is how Wolftaïr came to be. It was loads of fun and we ended up getting a pet lizard, naming it Altaïr; I ended up nearly always having him whenever we had our breaks. The second semester of this year, I was rooming with Katherine as her roommate took my spot with my roommate. As we were good friends, Katherine and I got along pretty well; while she had early morning classes, we didn't play games too much but were constantly watching something on Netflix. We had a bunk bed and every so often, whenever Katherine would fall asleep, she would start having small snippets of her dream come out as she spoke about it. I wrote down everything she said to bring it up the next day and it was rather funny. The one problem came up close to the end of the semester when things started to litter the floor and it became a hassle to walk across the room to my desk (of which I spent hours at for homework and Youtube purposes). We didn't connect after that; she moved off-campus to live in a house with two other people and I stayed on campus. This was the second best social year for me as I'd made loads of friends, all which came to be known as The Friend Group; this group consisted of nearly 25 people and we took up three tables if all of us were at a meal together. This was a rather good and fun year and the year I'd gotten into Markiplier and the Achievement Hunters.
This year, my senior year, I will say, again, that this was my favorite year. My first semester I had a roommate; this semester, I live alone. My roommate spent equal time in her room as I did though she went out more often than I during the weekends. She and I cliqued rather well as we bonded over various video games and tv shows that we would watch whenever possible. She ended up moving off-campus with a group of her friends and I don't really see her anymore. This was also a very stressful semester as I had a thesis paper that required my attention every other afternoon; I was either reading or watching a movie to work on this paper and I spent over 300 hours to get the right information and to type everything exactly the way I meant it. Upon completion, I was thrilled with it and loved every bit of effort I had put in. During this semester though, I met my friend, Ethan; he and I had the same music course at 11am and we lived in the same dorm. Either one of us would see each other walking over and we'd strike up a quick conversation before we arrived in class. After we found out we lived in the same dorm, he came over to hang out every once in a while. Now that I live alone, I practically call him my roommate as he's ALWAYS over here; after classes are done, my door is unlocked and he walks right in. He has food and drinks here and he feels more at home than he does in his own room. Alexa joined us shortly afterwards and she comes over just as often as Ethan does, though a bit later. We all end up just hanging out until I either kick them out or there is literally nothing to do anymore (which doesn't happen...like at all). Though I have a decent amount of work for my classes, this semester is one of the best. This entire year is one of the best.
I know I'm rambling at this point but...the realization is hitting me that I won't have this again for a while. Come six months, I'll be back at home, working at my same job but looking for a different, better one. I won't be at any schools or any training. This is it. This is the pivotal point in my life; it's where all of my emotions are every which way and none of them are winning. It's where I make the most decisions to have the best time possible, to make sure I don't make mistakes. Out of everything else, it's the time that I'm sharing with all of my friends that I want to squeeze the last drop of everything good we can make of these last few weeks.
I'm going to cry when it comes time to graduate, when finals week comes and it'll be my last seven days on campus. I know I'll still be in touch with everyone here but it's going to feel so painful to leave them. Ethan will be going back home after this year, after a very tough freshman year, back home to South Carolina; he won't be returning to this college and the only form of communication for us will be Facebook, texts and Snapchat. Alexa will still be here and we'll still be able to chat through Snapchat (mostly), talking about silly things and whatnot.
...I'm going to miss so much once I have to leave. I feel like my final week of college, I'm just going to walk around campus to every place that I can think of something happening and just relive those moments. I'm going to touch what I can to keep it in my head. I'll take pictures, I'll take video, I'll try whatever I can to say goodbye the right way. I just don't want to miss any other moments.
Graduation has me thinking of the future and the future looks bright for me.
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