What a Whirlwind.

Well. It seems that the end of my freshmen year of college is upon us. Wow. That is crazy. I don't feel like I am old enough for that yet. Which in reality I'm not. In an alternate universe I would be finishing up my senior year at Ramstein High School.Crazy. My journey to Snow College was a difficult and turbulent one. When I started college I was scared, nervous and every other kind of emotion that you can feel when you are moving away from home for the first time. My first semester definitely started off kind of awful, My idea of college was so different from the reality of it. I thought I would move into my apartment and everything would be spectacularly fun and me and my roommates would be the best of friends and life would be great. That's not exactly what happened. I suppose I could have had worse roommates but we definitely didn't click like I thought we would. Oh well. After the first couple of months I settled into a routine and I found some amazing friends that I'm sure will be lifelong friendships. It is a little crazy how close we all got, but I guess when you live in a tiny town and have nothing stopping you from hanging out all the time it's easier to get really close to people. I can honestly say that I wouldn't have made it through this year without Lainna, Marina, and Makayla. Of course this year had ups and downs but I'm trying to look only at the positives. This year was a whirlwind year of firsts for me, first time living on my own (obviously), first time having to feed myself (which is in fact not fun, I am greatly looking forward to a summer of being fed by my wonderful mother), first all-nighter for school, first all-nighter not for school, first time picking up my friends and driving to Denny's 45 minutes away at 2 am just because, first time experiencing how life really is in a tiny rural town, first kiss (pathetic I know), first time having to deal with car problems on my own (ugh what a nightmare), first Thanksgiving with extended family, first time realizing what I really want to do with my life, and about five thousand other things I am sure. I almost feel as if I am a completely different person than I was last August when I arrived here. I feel as though I have a better understanding of myself and who I am. When I left San Antonio last summer the only thought that was getting me to actually go through with the crazy idea of going to college a year earlier than planned was this:

I didn't want to miss out on life. I didn't want to be stuck in a rut in Texas. So pushed myself wayyyyyyy out of my comfort zone, and hopefully that was the right thing. The other day I was talking to Mikala about Snow and what if I hadn't come here and she just got this look on her face and she said, "Noo, because if you hadn't have gone to Snow then you wouldn't have got the flyer about ILP and gone to the meeting and then told me about it and then we wouldn't be going to China and that would be awful." And that is so true. I never would have known about ILP if I wasn't at Snow so maybe it was all meant to be, who knows. All I know is that this year was ok which was better than last year which was miserable and hopefully this next year will be great and life will just keep getting better. Progress not perfection right? 

-XOXO-