Musings in Myers

This morning, I refused to take the bus to school.  Instead, I slept that extra hour and drove to the Tate deck.  As a consequence I just rode the bus back to campus, so I can drive back home after 11:00 PM without paying for parking.

On the bus, thinking of where in the SLC I would situate myself and read new class syllabi, I saw Myers Hall outside and felt compelled to get off.  I felt like I owed this building a visit as a last-semester senior.

Well, it smells exactly the same as it did three years ago.  This smell of... woody cleanliness.  Everything looks so unchanged that I feel like I could walk up the ramp, scan my hand, and the door would still swing open for me.  Although I can only reminisce in the first floor common areas, this is enough for reflection.

In this building, Students of AMF started.  Our card-making, support group meetings, officer meetings. We met here for my very first InterVarsity small groups with the fifth-year senior Elizabeth (who I thought was so old).  For almost a year, I called this place home.  I would run into this building on a rainy day, shake off my umbrella, and end a long day of classes.  I would walk into the lobby from my end of the hall and meet up with my lover, coming from his end, so that we could set out for a run around campus or a concert at the Performing Arts Center.

Contrary to what many seniors told me when I was a freshman, I do not want to be a freshman again -- I don't want to have to re-learn about myself, I don't want to take freshman classes again, and I definitely don't want to be broke for an extra four years.  But I do dearly miss the memories from Myers.  In fact, I'm going to dearly miss college.  This is something I doubted for a while that I would ever say.  In freshman year, I felt like everybody else was having a funner college experience, making more friends, and finding their places better than I was.  But I found my own fun, friends, and "place" at just the right times and have had an amazing experience as an undergrad.  Oh my gosh, how wonderful college has been.  Of course, all good things must come to an end.  And the end is near.  I can't yet think of a brilliantly different way to spend this last semester.  I guess take time to savor each moment, not get too caught up in the little things to see the bigger picture, and take it easy and put high priority on loving my friends (= other students, professors, bosses...) here.

We should not dwell on the past, they say.  But I find happiness and inspiration for the future through occasional nostalgia.  Hello, Spring 2013.

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Excited for this semester's classes, too.  It's fun to walk into a class and learn about concepts you never knew existed, but it's even more exciting and satisfying to glance through a syllabus and think, "Oh my gosh I've been dying to learn about all of these!"  One of the perks of being far along in your major, I guess...