These Last 4 Years

I wrote more after my epic “I’M DONE!!!” entry, but never got around to hitting “Publish”. I was tempted to leave it out completely, but then thought my blog wouldn’t be complete without some sort of an I’m-done-with-college-reflection, so here it goes. I tried to keep it short. Here’s the rest of the original post.

06/09/05

I walked out of my last final grinning today, nearly laughing at how good it felt to be done. I guess I found the feeling odd because I had always imagined my final days in college to be sad. In truth, these last four years have been nothing short of amazing, in every possible sense of the word. I remember after my first week having moved to Seattle, I worried that the four years would go by too fast. In retrospect, perhaps that’s what has driven my college experience, the notion that my time at the university was limited, that there were only so many days to take everything for what it was worth. Whether it was late nights in the dorms with my floormates, studying past midnight in Odegaard, or walking across Red Square, I’ve always had a sense of feeling lucky to be here, doing what I was doing.

Yeah so what was it that I was doing? Well, having adventures, I suppose. College to me will always be Terry floors 2 & 3, those spontaneous nights out in the city, the INFO Crew, sharing a room with Casey and Ieva, teriyaki and pho on the Ave., running into people at the HUB, sleeping on the bottom bunk, bubble tea, and living in Mary Gates Hall. It’s incredibly difficult to reflect on four years worth of memories, any list would be incomplete in some way. I mean, listing events can only do so much in describing a time in your life and how much you’ve changed or grown, but I’ll leave it at that.

My goal when I got to the University of Washington was simple: find a community. That was it. Not good grades, not get involved on campus, not to find a job. My goal as a freshman was to find a community to be a part of because I knew the best grades in the world, the well-paid student job, and all the academic successes meant little without a community of friends to share that with. And it’s funny to think about how objectively I thought about this as I moved out of my house to UW, but it’s the truth. I had no idea how blessed I would ultimately be to have the people around me that I do to share this college adventure. And it is those relationships, coupled with university circumstances, that has really made my college years what they were. It’s been an amazing last four years and while I was originally reluctant to close this chapter in my life, I’m happy to find that at the end of it, I’m still eagerly looking forward to what’s next.