Thank You, Penn State

For the next 17 days, I will take in the smells, the sights, the people and the sounds that fill happy valley.

For the next 17 days, I will eat as much Creamery ice cream, West cookies and Fiddlehead as I can.

For the next 17 days, I will say thank you to the place I’ve called home for the last four years.

Last weekend when I refused to pick up my cap and gown, my dad told me, “look at you now, when you first got here, you didn’t want to stay and now four years later, you don’t want to leave,” and he’s right.

Why would I want to leave the place that gave me my best friends? Why would I want to leave the place I’ve spent the last four years in? Why would I possibly want to be anywhere else that does not bleed as much blue and white as we do? All my friends, my favorite teachers, my house, I don’t want to leave them!

To all of this, I say, Thank you, Penn State.

Thank you for giving me my safe place.

Thank you for giving me my crazy best friends who love ‘taco tuesday’ and shrimp scampi more than anyone i know.

Thank you for giving me my person, that any point on any day, can be found in our favorite bar in our favorite spot.

Thank you for the boys I’ve met, but thank you especially for the one who now fills my life with happiness.

Thank you for introducing me to THON.

Thank you for giving me three families to cherish and who are one of the only reasons I am still here at penn state.

Thank you for showing me what it mean to fight for the cure.

Thank you for giving me a community that stands together, all different but all there for the same reason.

Thank you for showing me that all of my hard work paid off, and thank you for allowing me to spend 46 dancing for a cure.

Thank you for football Saturdays.

Thank you for the fight song, the ‘WE ARE’ chant, for going into triple overtime and beating michigan, my freshman year.

Thank you for the chicken baskets that we hang in the air for the perfect Snapchat.

Thank you for the clubs I’m a part of.

Thank you for showing me Her Campus and for the crazy girls that I laugh with every Wednesday.

Thank you for club sports and for the friends I’ve made there and the ones I’ve made supervising.

Thank you for being and hosting one of the biggest homecoming celebrations.

Thank you for always having the coolest Honorary Grand Marshals and people to look up to.

Thank you for the directors, captains and committee members I’ve become friends with throughout my four years.

Thank you Bill Pickles Tap Room, sunny days at Cafe 210 West and for opening Champs downtown.

Thank you for the double vodka cranberries with a splash of OJ and memories shared among amazing friends.

Thank you for the laughs, the (many) tears and everything in between.

Thank you for taking that shy little freshman girl who wanted to go home and turning her into the crazy, outgoing senior she is today.

I think about everything that has happened in the past four years and so for the next 17 days, I say,

THANK YOU PENN STATE.

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