A Reflection from the Beginning

One might wonder why a blog would ever be named as vague as the title I chose. As a college student in Vermont, this makes much more sense. After all Vermont is known as the green mountain state with the sugar maple as the state tree. And from the sugar maple comes the greatest maple syrup on Earth. This only seemed appropriate as this will become the chronicle of my remaining years living in this beautiful state. That number is currently unknown as anything could happen from now until my expected graduation in three years.

With only one week left of my freshman year, how can I write about what happens in Vermont if I'm just about to leave it. However, this blog isn't just about life in Vermont. It's about the journey I take as I enter the world of adulthood and life beyond college. And that means starting with this summer being spent in my home in New Jersey. I've decided to take this summer to reflect on the year I just had and to figure out what I really want out of life. Being a freshman has allowed me to make discoveries and to try new things. Sophomore year will also be about discovery but also about focusing in on those discoveries.

So much has happened to me in one year. I've experienced new friendships, sharing a room with two other people, rejections, the struggles of chemistry, horrible biology professors and independence. Each of these experiences have taught me lessons that will make me a better person and more prepared for anything.

On the topic of friendships, I had made myself a quite a nice group of friends in the first week of school. I had kept in contact with my friend from orientation and instantly clung to her suite mate. One of my roommates had spent a lot of time with us as well. We then proceeded to meet people on the bus going to the dining hall. We all instantly clicked and spent several dinners that first week of school together. Then came the first weekend on campus. Like every curious freshman student, we all wanted to experience a college party. Of course the boys had a frat party in mind. Our search of that one party was the wedge that split us apart. I didn't really talk to them since except for the occasional hello in passing. It wasn't until recently that I had actually had a normal conversation with one of the guys I was closer to. And it made me realize just how many mistakes I had made in my lack of trying to preserve our friendship. Which led me to further analyze my social skills and how I tend to distance myself from others when they want to get closer to me. This is definitely something I will be working to fix over this summer.

To continue with my friendships, the greatest friendship I made all year was that of Nicole. After all, the people you meet at tryouts for the one sport you have a passion for usually leads to having common interests. I just didn't realize that equestrian team tryouts was going to introduce me to the one person who was closest to being my twin. Both of us being equestrians and zoology majors, we slowly discovered just how similar we were beyond that. To be honest, I don't know how I would've survived this year without her. And I have her to thank for introducing me to the second group of friends I have become close to. I also wouldn't have met the final member of the "Three Amigos" as I like to refer to us. Being a person of different interests than Nicole and I, Hailey helped to balance out those days when Nicole and I couldn't talk about horses or our majors anymore. Always having something new and exciting to share, Hailey easily became someone I could trust and talk to about anything. And those days when Nicole wasn't around, I could always go ahead and spend my day with Hailey. If I really wanted to I could easily make myself at home in either of their rooms. (It was really nice that they lived on the same floor). It often made me sad when it got to be midnight on a weekday and I had to cut our time together short so I could catch a bus back to my dorm on the other side of campus. (I managed to get placed on the far side of campus which was pretty much off-campus). Without these two, I can guarantee I would've been the most miserable person on this campus.

On the topic of rejection, I had to go through the realization that there will always be someone who is better than me at everything I am good at. Take my lack of making it onto either of the two riding teams at school first semester. While horseback riding has been one of those things that I had devoted my time to as a child and in high school, it was the one thing that I had found I could be good at and no one could tell me otherwise. Enter college, and well in that first weekend of school I was instantly told that I wasn't good enough to compete with the group of people on the teams. I remember moping around the day I had found out the results of tryouts because it always hurts to be told that there are people better than you. But I was persistent, I made sure to try out again in the beginning of the second semester. And I was smart enough too because I made it onto the team. To which I found out that I originally didn't make the team due to me not being ready for it versus someone being better than I was. Which is why I absolutely love my team because its not one about who is the best rider but about who can learn something new every time they get on a horse. Plus I know I have at least 18 other people who will always be there for me when I need something or someone to talk to.

Elaborating on what its like to live in a triple in a college dorm is quite impossible. There is really no way to easily describe just what it's like. It's had its ups and downs. I still remember how difficult it was trying to find some time to myself in the room. Which is quite impossible when you have a roommate who wouldn't leave the room unless you pulled her out of the room. I had hoped that would change at some point during the year but that actually didn't happen. It did allow for me to grow closer to my other roommate as we would often share our dislike of our roommate never wanting to leave and ways of getting her more involved. I'm definitely going to miss sharing a room with her next year. But since I'm living with one of her best friends I can definitely count of her spending time in our room.

As in every college there is always that one course that everyone finds difficult. And that was general chemistry. My largest lecture class I experienced the struggles of not understanding anything that was going on. I experienced the failing test grades and the fear of being placed on academic probation for the poor semester grade. (I wasn't actually going to be in risk of being dismissed from the school. Just the possibility of losing my scholarship). Thankfully with some miracle I did manage to escape the course with a B-. And then there was biology second semester. Nothing makes biology uninteresting than a professor who can't teach. And I managed to get stuck with two of them who couldn't. It's really hard for me to not want to learn about biology related topics. These two professors really made me question if I was in the right major. It even made me feel so much better about how I was doing in chemistry. Because I actually knew what was going on in that class despite my inability to actually get the problems right. But I powered through the semester with both horrible professors and I've never been so excited to be done with a bio class.

The greatest experience I had by going to college was that of learning how to be independent of my parents. I had never been one of those kids to go away to sleep away camp so living separate of them was a concept that I didn't know if I could handle. It wasn't like they could be at my beck and call whenever I needed them either. Living five and half hours away makes that pretty impossible. The first week at school definitely was rough, getting settled and finally realizing that I was on my own. But my parents had done a great job of raising me so that I wouldn't get into trouble or make stupid mistakes. As time went on this year, I found it a lot easier to deal with the separation. Before I knew it, I really enjoyed my distance from them. Which I could tell annoyed them because I would forget to call them and keep pushing off calling them back. It wasn't until I had gone home for spring break that I realized I should probably keep in touch with them more. There was that little part of me that had finally told me I really missed them.

Looking back on this year, I can clearly see that I have grown up from the little newly turned 18 year old I was when I arrived at college. I really enjoy this feeling of growing up yet I still want to hold on to what it's like to be a child. I know I can't live in this sort of limbo between childhood and adulthood for long. But as long as I am in it, I am going to enjoy it to the best that I can. And I hope to learn from it and become a better person because of it. But first, the mistakes and the horrible qualities about myself must surface and be buried as with everything good that will eventually come. And so the journey continues.