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Maiadvicestudios

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wolf children study.gif

i barely survived my first semester of college

November 19, 2018

The first night of college taught me a lot about what the rest of my experience would be like. Kaline, my roommate and my best friend(you'll be hearing tons more about her on this blog) hadn't moved in yet. After what felt like and actually was hours upon hours of me unpacking, I was finally done. My side of the room was fully furnished, decorated and ready to be lived in. Unpacking is lowkey a physical exercise so I'd worked up a sweat. I showered making sure to grab my room key-a habit that would take me awhile to form- so that I wouldn't be locked out the room when I returned. 

Now the rooms in this dorm all have big windows on one wall. These windows are covered by a shade. The shade is the kind where you pull on the bottom to raise and to lower to your desired height. This is not a shade I was familiar working with. When I returned to the room I dried off, hung my towel up and started to lotion up when I realized the shade was a little high for my liking. So I strolled over to the window and gave it a little tug on the bottom to pull it down. This is when things went south. Or rather, north.

Instead of slowly pulling it down to my desired level I just tugged on it hard and fast causing it to slip out of my fingers and immediately ricochet away, bouncing on the window until it came to a loud booming end, snapping against the metal cylinder at the top of the window. I was left in shock. Literally naked, and afraid. I stared outside the giant windows that were now fully uncovered giving everyone across the green who was looking out their windows at that moment a full view of my freshly washed, naked body. 

After what felt like hours but was merely moments the shock began to wear off and the mortification began to set in. I tried to jump for the shade but it was too high. I scrambled onto Kalines empty desk and finally was able to reach the top of the shade. As fast as I could I whipped it all the way down so that not even a sliver of light escaped the room. My heart beat loudly in my ears as my cheeks flushed in irritation and embarrassment. Welcome to college. 

I feel like this story is a good metaphor for my first semester at college. There were many times I found myself thrust into foreign and frightening situations-walking into class and seeing people study for a quiz I didn't know about-and as a result I scrambled to find a solution-sitting next to the smartest kid in class. Another reason this story is a good metaphor, although I admit it's a bit of a stretch, is because in it I was clean and I was naked. And that's how I felt when I started college.

I was clean. I'd stripped myself of all the negative bullshit that high school had strapped to my back. The endless nagging of my parents. The insecurities, the anxieties and the fear. I was so excited to begin this next step of my journey I made it a point to stop looking behind me. To start fresh where I was with as open a mindset as possible. I held nothing about myself back from anyone. I didn't modify my personality to make it more bearable for those around me like I'd often done in high school. And in that sense I was naked. I was baring my soul to the strangers around me in hope someone would bare theirs back and boom, friendship. As cheesy as that sounds, it worked.

The friends I made in my first semester, the people I met. I can't even imagine what my life would be like without them. They're fifty percent of the reason why I survived my first semester. Even if that just meant making me go to class. When my mom would say savor college because it goes by faster than you think, I would nod my head but inside I thought she was just over exaggerating. She wasn't. Months flew by in a flash. Now I'm almost done with my first year of college. Wow. This is the first time I've put those words together like that. It's kind of, scary. 

Tags college, friendship, funnystory
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