Setting foot on campus as a real student and not an academic tourist, first time being given instructions for where to go and in what order to do things, first time entering your dorm, meeting your roommate and the other members of your hall… there’s nothing like it ever again.
Your body is jittery and you don’t entirely know how to react to anything, as you’ve built up so much fear and then squashed it down with brave faces and genuine excitement.
The place you’re going has been polished and shined, replanted and repainted (however cheaply, as you’ll discover years later when you walk into an apartment with new white paint that only goes six feet up the wall) and the location of everything is carefully labeled or marked, and sometimes even highlighted with a couple brightly colored balloons attached to signs. The grass is green, the sky is clear, and the sun is brighter than you’ve ever seen it.
It’s so damn exciting!
And now, four years later, watching it start, the morning air is just as crisp, the sun is just as bright, and the tension hovering around campus is still just as high—just not for me.
I’m here, I’m old news, and the only thing I have to be nervous about is what is going to happen to me at the end of the year.
I’ve been in every building on campus, some of them I know so well I could navigate them with my eyes closed. I know all the policies, know all the rules, and I know exactly how to break all of them without getting in trouble. Everyone is familiar, at least by sight. I know it all. This is my home.
But now, watching the incoming freshman gingerly open the doors to the University Center, with the feelings nervousness, apprehension and exhilaration all gathering together like a storm cloud, the tension crackling in the air like electricity, I can’t help but feel excited too. Maybe it’s not my brand new day, but it’s the start of a wonderful thing for these kids.
They look so… young. They have no idea that today is the first day of the best four years of their lives. And just watching, I feel like a part of it, because this is my school. Home.
They still don’t know how insanely lucky they are to be here. They don’t know what this place is like—sure, they have an idea, they’ve been told all the hard facts by the internet, mail, pamphlets, and staff, but they don’t know what it’s like to really live here…yet.
Watching brings back my own memories so strongly. I can feel everything—the trepidation, the edginess, the anxiety, and the knowledge that this is a whole new start, that my life is finally beginning. It’s amazing, but as a flashback, I almost want to cry.
But I won’t.
Because I’m not done yet.
I’m going out with a bang.
I have one more fabulous year, to completely rediscover why exactly I’m so, so fortunate that this magical place is where I get to live. Hell, maybe last year’s graduating class looks at all of us, the Class of 2012, and laughs to themselves, knowing how we foolish youngsters have no idea how lucky we are, what we’re in for during our final year here.
I’m not worried. The excitement hasn’t gone away; it’s just taken a different form.
Have a good move in kids. You’re in for one hell of a time.
~Asterisk
How much is Willamette paying you to write this?
ReplyDeleteBut really, it's awesome how much you love your school. Next week I get to be a MUG leader, which means I get to lead a group of "muggies" through their first day at UBC. I have no idea why I signed up for it, since I experienced very little excitement then and even less nostalgia now. Here goes fourth year!