TEEN CENTER :: COLLEGE CENTER

FRESHMAN JOURNAL: MAY 20, 2006
'Freshman Year Was Incredible'

By Julia Choe

Packing up my dorm room before leaving for summer vacation was much harder than it should have been. Three hours after beginning, my room looked like exactly the same cluttered mess that it had been all year. Looking over all the various books, pictures, and odds and ends that had accumulated over the past year, I couldn't bring myself to admit that I would no longer be living on the second floor, Matthews Hall North, as a first-year.

For a time, I just sat and looked around my room, marveling at the huge amount of memories and experiences of the past year. Moving in, the Harvard-Yale football game, finals, spring break, dance competitions, essays…it was so much that I wondered how it had all fit in during the months of September and May. The saddest part of leaving freshman year, I think, is the realization that so many first experiences are gone. There is so much excitement surrounding each event freshman year, and I'm afraid that after this year, it will never again be as much fun. But then again, maybe I can actually begin to appreciate the different aspects of college life if I am not so dazzled by their newness. I feel as if for the first part of the year, I was so overwhelmed that I wasn't able to fully recognize many experiences fully. Or maybe it's just one of those facts of life that it's only possible to appreciate things after having had time to reflect on them. I think that it will take at least a few months for me to realize that one quarter of my college experience has already happened. And while I hate to hear people always talk about how fast life goes by, I can't escape the truth that there is no way to stop time from moving along twice as fast as I wish it would.

In any case, those were the ideas that were swirling through my head as I packed up the seemingly endless supply of junk into cardboard boxes. The main one that kept coming to mind, however, was that this process would have been so much easier if my family were here to help me. If only my parents could come help me pack, and carry my stuff to my upperclassman house's storage, the whole situation would have been a million times more pleasant. When I brought my bags with me originally, I had plenty of help. But I guess that's such a significant part of this year--I would never think of asking my parents to help me bring my stuff back. I assume that I will do it myself, and that even if it is hard, it is my responsibility to do. In that same sense, I've realized that when I have any large problem or issue to resolve, I don't turn to other people. I am forced to make it work, even if it seems impossible at first. And so, as I packed up my belongings and slowly started the struggle that was the trek to next year's dorm, I was at least comforted by the fact that I was doing it by myself. (Admittedly, this was a small consolation as my arms slowly lost feeling).

It's hard to make a cohesive conclusion out of this final journal entry. Is it possible to draw all that has happened this year into one tidy little paragraph? If that's true, I'd love to know how. There are so many issues I could address--friends, classes, getting older--that I don't think I'll ever be able to completely explain all of them. So I guess in a way, this journal entry is just going to represent freshman year--confusing, maybe a little jumbled, and hard to understand. I won't try to sort any of it out, because that would take too long and probably bore anyone else but me. Basically…freshman year was incredible. But other than that, I really can't describe it. Specific events, I could explain, but I can't make an overriding theme that links together the year. So I guess instead of doing that, I will just say this-packing is really, really not fun. Make some big, burly, friends, who can carry lots of boxes, and whatever you do-don't leave all your packing for the last day.