Final College Entry
Well that's it. It's over. I just turned in the final paperwork needed to graduate. I have had some wild times and wonderful memories here at Lewis and Clark. Honestly I wish I could just remain a student here forever. There are always interesting things going on and interesting topics to discourse. I just found out that a course on Dante and the Middle Ages is being offered for English majors next semester. I would have loved to take a class like that. I'm sitting in Maggie's right now while I type this, and I keep thinking to myself, "My god I love this place." In the course of one person's life we experience many things. Love and loss, greed and satisfaction, generosity and discrimination. I would like to think that during the four years that I have lived, breathed, laughed, and cried in this place, I have accumulated enough experiences to prepare me for the wider world. But the truth is that the wider world is limited only to what you perceive it to be. Some will plan to take it easy, settling down somewhere and just being content with living on with their significant others and future children. Others want to roam, to drink in the world and experience as much as possible. I can't really tell which I want to be. I seek contentment and satisfaction, but at the same time I feel ambition and wanderlust welling within me. I love the city of Portland, and I don't think there is another place in the world to which I am so well fitted. However I do want to view the awesome and terrible things that the rest of the world has to offer. Splendor and poverty, we know that such things exist around us, but if you don't go and see them for yourself, you will never understand them. I've stood in the great cathedrals of Rome and prostrated myself before their alters. I've gazed with wonder upon the great works of art in the Louvre and sought new meaning in existence. I've studied with brilliant minds and explored the inner workings of man's desires. And I've watched the beggars throw themselves at the mercy of passer's by. Seen once beautiful cities clogged with garbage and human waste. All of this I got to experience during my years at college. So though I move forward to what may be an even more wondrous life, I feel that it is appropriate that I pause at this moment, and record the feelings that are engulfing my thoughts. Here, in this little cafe situated at the center of the place I love most. I will miss it dearly.