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Finals are coming up and I have no time this weekend to work on my essays that are due or change the bulletin boards on my floor plus I really used too many swipes this week and that’s problematic and I really think calculus is a machination of the devil and why am I getting so many emails right now my life would be easier if I lived in the era of telegrams nobody needed to graph conic sections back when they thought the world was flat–
There are times when being at this school makes breathing seem like unnecessary stress. Whether it breaks the ice or chisels it around your heart, stress is our common ground; our days are spent bustling from one class to the next as our agendas more convoluted with each step we take. And yet we keep doing it. Walking and breathing and growing all at once. Our little MoHi bubble is brimming with people that are constantly achieving what we once thought was impossible. So even though you might be rethinking your existence after a certain Bio midterm last week, guess what? You’re still a part of it. Perhaps even more so because of these setbacks. Bank on it: In four years or less, you’ll be sweating in front of the steps of Low, sporting that cute gown in Pantone 292 (also known as RGB #C4D8E2) and cruising past that TA that told you to rethink your major after one bad midterm. Picture it. Revel in its permanence. Unlike your temperamental GPA or the mouse you saw scamper away from your snack drawer last week, that moment will stay with you for as long as you live.
Whether it’s true or not, I don’t care much for the notion that the skill of graphing conic sections will be relevant to the rest of my life. I prefer to believe that I’ll remember the time I trekked around Brooklyn during a rainstorm with two of my best friends, determined to find an outfit worthy of seeing YEEZUS live. In a few years I’d rather recall the time we ordered Chinese food to Kent Hall than the review problems at the end section 15.6 of Stewart’s Calculus. I’ll even look back on April 2014’s Hangover from Hell with more fondness than that trial semester of majoring in psychology (okay, maybe not). My point is, although graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from a school like this is an amazing, humbling opportunity and proud accomplishment, I can’t help but want more. I want to graduate with a functional understanding of how to navigate a borough or two without consulting Google Maps. I want to forge loyalties to places downtown with the best coffee and the best pizza and the best thrifting and the best used books. And every once in a while I’d rather stress over what to do for a friend’s birthday celebration than what to write my next paper on. At the end of the day, looking back through old tweets will warm your icy heart more than intimately gazing at the diploma hanging above your fireplace. So log out. Put down your books, lace up your boots, and start writing your story.