It felt weird the first time I hopped on that plane knowing that I could then say I had successfully completed an entire semester of college. Now, of course, that feels a little easier to believe. This time, it felt more like my twentieth trip back home instead of maybe my second. But it doesn’t mean that the feeling was any less jarring.
One semester was one thing. But three feels beyond crazy. The fact that it’s been a whole year since that first time I sat with nervous anticipation in front of my laptop, urging the screen to finally load and flashback the first four letters of my college career, the first contributing final grades to my precious little first-year GPA, is insane. I try to think back on where I was then and it’s honestly difficult to place that period next to the semester that just ended. Sure, there were unknowns and fun surprises this semester, but there really is nothing that could ever again compare with the feeling of newness that lingered those first few months of my first year. Even if it didn’t feel like it at the time, I was overwhelmed with novelty.
This year, I had completely forgotten about Empty Mugs, the ceramic fair that happens just before Winter Break every year where everyone in the town gathers at First Church to shop for beautiful mugs and bowls handmade by members of the student-run pottery co-op. I knew this time that it’s best to show up towards the end for the lowest prices but at the very beginning for the best pieces. And what about Walkin’ in a Winter Oberlin, the holiday fair that happens downtown where kids run around the bonfire making s’mores in Tappan Square, fire trucks parade through the town fully decked out in light displays, and an ice sculpture is set on fire? I had no idea last year that you needed to spread your time out strategically, making sure to get a good spot in front of the melting ice before it was gone but also making it to the hot chocolate line in time.
Next December, after many of you have gone past your first steps on campus and some of you have gotten to experience for the first time what real wind feels like, you’re going to feel like you’ve been at school forever. You’re going to have this false feeling of rigidity that comes with pretending you understand everything there is to know about life on campus, no matter where you may end up. And that’s a good feeling to have. The fake-it-til-you-make-it thing really did provide me with a comforting sense of security, as I’ve heard it did for everybody. But it’s important to savor those moments of complete uncertainty, those times when you’re left without any kind of training wheels or guidelines. It’s a terrifying thing to take that first step and finally say hi to the person in the bathroom you’ve been running into for a week but never really interacted with or to knock on your professor’s door as you tiptoe into your very first office hours appointment. But now that I’ve gone through everything packed into the fall semester a second time, I’ve only grown to appreciate more just how much this school has to offer. And I wish I had been a little less hesitant to fully take advantage of that in my first year.
This semester was definitely an interesting one. The number of trips to Sheetz I’ve embarked on since late August reached a pretty shameful amount, and I’ve spent so much time hanging out with my friends at Bailey (French House, one of the language-themed dorms) that I’ve already pretty much memorized this year’s room assignment layout for the whole building without living there.
But then again, I still can’t ever in one try find the bathroom on the second floor of Mudd, our ginormous library that you just can’t help but spend hours at a time in. No matter how many times I walk from the laundry room to mine, I’m going to do a double take at the top of the stairs to make sure I’m going the right way. This could be a testament to my incredibly terrible sense of direction, but I like to think of it as a way of reminding myself that there’s always going to be something to keep me on my toes here. There’s always a new hallway to find, a new event to go to, and a new person to meet. And that’s a really cool thing to know I can rely on for all four years.
