Summer, College, and Life Ahead
It's really amusing that: A) This is the first update I have for this journal since March and B) think of something funny. I would love to comment on so many things, but I fear I would bore so many that I'd have a bunch of nonsense complaints to be read after they've been filed. At any rate, I do have several updates regarding my subject (if your eyes are too lazy to go up about two inches the subject was "Summer, College, and Life Ahead").
First topic for the entry: my summer. I am having the most amazing summer. I am having so much fun with my friends I almost wish I could go back to high school...almost ;^). Beginning with my Youth Group trip to New York City, my summer has been straight out social bliss. I have gotten to be great friends with my Youth Group folk and I think we'll be in touch for life. I've gotten to go to the beach, the mall, Boston, Chicago, New York, and Portland, ME. These are just a small sampling, but I have had a great time attending them all. As a matter of fact: as the year mark passed for ownership of my car, I realized I had put over nine thousand miles on my little baby. In the slightly over a month of time since, I have put on another thousand, plus. The Arab folk must be loving me...I may have single-handedly bought fourteen families new homes with gasoline consumption like that (especially at around two dollars per gallon). Anyway, I've been getting around; and do to a resignation of employment at Granite State Credit Union effective Saturday, the Fourteenth of August, of the year of our Lord two thousand four, I'll have just a touch of extra free time before heading off to that mysteriously unpredictable phase known as college.
Speaking of college, that brings me to my second topic. For those who may be unaware, I am attending New York University on the island of Manhattan in the great city of New York at the well-renowned Leonard N. Stern School of Business (insert the colour purple and the school mascot here for proper stereotypical college-bound ambiance). I will be majoring in Finance and believe I will declare a co-major in International Business with a minor in Spanish and potentially Economics and/or French as well. I have large ambitions for the future, but I know New york is the perfect place for them...it is the greatest, after all. I do so love New York and am so happy for an opportunity to return to my abundantly caring guardian for my furthered education.
The only true problem with college is that it is not high school. I'm sure this makes perfect sense to those who are where I am in life, or have since been here. For those who have not, you will know soon enough. The experience of college promises to be thrilling, enthralling, fulfilling, and (most importantly) fun; but I fear that it is not free. For all of the following aspects: Economic, Mental, and Social; college is absolutely not free. The economic aspect is quite apparent, costing me as much for four years of education as a rather large home might in most locales throughotu our fair world. The mental aspect is somewhat less apparent, but it remains a trifle obvious that living on one's own and being at first responsible for one's own well-being is a mental tax that most recognize. What was difficult to foresee for me, and for all who have and will undergo this process, is the social taxation associated with college. It is difficult to comprehend and truly appreciate the value of one's friends until one is forced to relinquish them. Though I may remain friends with all of my acquaintances, it is undeniable that with physical separation comes an equally painful social one. As I become more anxious and excited for the impending college beginning, I become equally anxious for the equally impending separation to come between both friends and family. It is the typically offered consolation of every average adult that one will "make new friends in college," but all parties concerned are well aware that this offers no comfort at all. There is no replacement for friends, they are perhaps buried in a fog of forgetfulness; lost through the passage of time. Perhaps, to adapt General McArthur's farewell words, "Old friends never die, they just fade away." It is with this thought that I say to all my friends: "I love you dearly as people who have offered their equal love, support, and care throughout all times of my life; and I solemnly vow that, as long as we both shall live, you will remain forever vivid in my imagination and memory, never to fade away."