Valentine’s day is over, ABC family has stopped playing sappy love movies, and chocolate has gone on sale. Stores have replaced the red and pink decorations for green cards, green streamers, top hats, and more. But, us college students? We’re left focusing less on the next holiday and more on the fact that it is nearly midterm. Yikes!
It’s around this time of the year I begin to wish I could go back to December and choose sleep over watching the endless late night episodes of Criminal Minds, The Nanny, or Sex and the City. If I had caught up then, I wouldn’t be half-dead now. However, here we are, Mid-February and dragging our feet—living off of our grande-sized, black coffees, and studying until the wee hours of the morning.
However, there’s nothing like a cutie to change your perspective on just about anything. And this week we have found another sweetie, sure to liven up even your blackest of coffees.
Michael McAndrew is a music major here at UNI, with only one more semester to go. Key word from that last sentence being music…yes ladies, he’s a musician. In fact, a lot of McAndrew’s hopes for his future, favorite moments, and passions all come back to music. “I love making music…there’s something so cool when many voices become one” Michael reflected.
Within the next ten years, McAndrew hopes to find himself out of grad school, and directing a college choir. His dream is to one day direct for a professional choir. With the drive and passion found within this cutie, I am convinced he will be successful.
As director for the Men’s Glee Club Chamber Ensemble, and a glee club member himself, McAndrew is well on his way to a career as a professional director. To say that Michael has a lot of talent is clearly an understatement. What he has, instead, is a lot of PASSION.
Using the word to describe himself, McAndrew listed the things he is most passionate about: Music (obviously) and faith. Both passions can be found within Michael’s life verse from Psalm 69:30 “I will praise God’s name in song and glorify Him with thanksgiving.”
Though McAndrew keeps himself busy with his passions—through glee club meetings and practices, and his various activities through St. Stephen the Witness Catholic Student Center, he still reserves plenty of time for another one of his passions: his friends.
Whether it be joking around with the roommates, of whom you may know three (Ian Goldsmith, Spencer Walrath, and Logan Mundt have all been featured as campus cuties), or taking day trips to Galena with pals, this cutie values his time spent with close friends.
In fact, in reference to his favorite way to spend an evening, McAndrew expressed his love for Starbucks and coffee dates. “The best times are spent with people in deep conversations,” Michael explained. And I couldn’t agree more. In addition to the fact that a stop at a coffee shop leaves my coat smelling of coffee beans, and gets my homework rolling…it also gives way to good conversations and lasting friendships.
If there’s one thing this Valentine’s season has taught me, it is the importance of friendship. The more I reflect upon it, the truer it is: I would be lost without my friends.
So often, as college students, we tend to put our friends on the back burner…only to be summoned when we need something like a night out, advice, or a study buddy. Homework, boyfriends, jobs…they all try and demand the time that we should, instead, be investing in the people who will always be there.
Maybe this Valentine’s Day wasn’t spent with a guy. But, do I regret it? Not at all. Instead, I spent it botching a Pinterest Recipe, breaking a blender with a knife, laughing constantly, and watching the Notebook with one of my best girl friends. Years down the road, I believe we’ll be making similar memories still—can I say that about any of the guys or homework I spend my time on? Probably not.
At the end of the day, it isn’t the homework that will define you, the job that will reward you, nor the boyfriend that will love you. No ladies, those are all things your friends can supply you with.
A couple years down the road it’ll be your beautiful friends who will be standing next to you on that special “I Do” day. They’ll be holding your flowers, fixing your train, and making speeches about all of the amazing memories you shared.
Do you have a friend you haven’t called in a while—just to say “hello?” Bored of the hum-drum “nights in” spent with your boyfriend? Put down the flashcards and notes, and pick up the phone. I guarantee there’s a good friend just waiting for your invite to a coffee date. Take it from Michael, there’s nothing better than good conversation and that glorious coffee smell upon your jacket.