What a delightful day I had a month ago when I met with my honor's advisor and was told, "Yes, Sarah, you are correct, at the end of this semester you will have earned your degree and will be prepared for graduation."
There is currently a torrential downpour (only a slight exaggeration) happening outside, so, in an effort to stay dry, I decided to take a pit stop in Wilson Library until the rain lets up. Just a few minutes ago I was crossing the bridge with a fellow CLA Student Ambassador sharing her umbrella, and was reminded of a very similar experience I had this past summer when studying in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
It is strange for me to think that in the spring of 2004, the year I graduated high school, all I thought I wanted was to live a grand adventure. It seemed I needed to go to school far, far from home or spend a year backpacking through Europe or live two months on a remote desert island. It didn't matter what the adventure was, I just felt I needed something extraordinary, something almost tangible to prove my independence and rite of passage into adulthood.
College is hard. This is a fact—at least according to me. However, sometimes it seems much more difficult than normal. I am experiencing a perfect example of these times right now as I am in the heat of studying for midterms in four different courses as well as performing with the U of M Dance Program and working on my Honors CLA senior thesis. I shouldn’t be surprised though, exams are never easy. I didn’t need Newton to discover this one for me. I learned it on my own long ago. Nevertheless, a midterm based on the physics of Newton’s discoveries is completely new territory for me. It is new but nevertheless interesting territory.
I will be performing at the Ted Mann Concert Hall in the West Bank Arts Quarter in about a week and the stage fright is starting to set in.
“Summertime and the livin' is easy.�
These lyrics from the musical Porgy and Bess seem surprisingly fitting with how my summer is going so far. While I still have not managed to get any sign of a tan, I have enjoyed playing Frisbee outside almost daily. In the fall I might even tryout my skills and join one of the many pickup games of Ultimate Frisbee that happen so frequently in the Mall Area between Northrop Auditorium and Coffman Union.
School’s out for summer! Finals are over and my mind doesn’t need to worry about studying until July when I start up again with summer session. While I should be searching for summer employment, all I want to do is lie outside in the grass or run through the sprinklers like a five year old. This urge may have something to do with the fact that my apartment is not air-conditioned and is somehow hotter inside than it is outside. It seems sweating is inevitable.
Why is it that I can never seem to figure out what I want to be when I grow up? I am twenty-one years old and about to complete my junior year in college and yet I am still relatively clueless as to what I am going to do when I am forced to face the real world. I have had six concrete careers lined up for myself but it seems every month I am inspired by a new career and change my mind all together.
