As a freshman, I’m lost. I might as well mean that literally just as I do metaphorically. Although our first quarter has grown wings and flown away to a place we can never relive again, my mind is still a chaotic mess. With my mind whirring furiously, my body is still getting acclimated to the change in altitude, surviving what feels to be a big blow to the lungs after just running a quarter of a mile.
As that big blow pains my chest while I bend my head over the street gasping for breath, my mind undergoes a powerful revelation. I’m suddenly shaken to my core as if Zeus’ brawny voice echoes from the mountaintops yelling, “There be freshman, don’t dare ye give up!” Seconds later, I find myself able to lift my head up and stand upright. Nothing can stop me now.
Continuing my run back to the dorm, I can’t help the sudden urge to glance downward and notice that my muscles feel twice as large as before. My biceps are bulging and my calves are bursting. A cocky grin slaps across my face as I gleefully skip towards a tree and climb to the top to save a distressed kitten.
As John Green Hall appears on my right, I begin to remember the craziness of that first week.
If registration was considered a disaster, trying to find a business calculus class with an open seat was a fiasco. So, a few days later and against my wishes, I was stashed up in a John Green Hall, attempting to understand the strange, foreign symbols my mumbling professor was writing on the board. Hesitant to stay and waste my time, I looked toward the door, lifted my butt of the chair, and readied myself for the escape. Worrying if this was breaking some kind of college rule, I decided to stay a little longer. Fifteen minutes later, not wanting to waste my time, I left and sprinted over to Margery Reed to drop the class.
I was never prepared to endure the following wild week of changing schedules, collecting drop slips, receiving anonymous text messages spreading the word of parties, buying earplugs for the new roommate experience, spending a summer’s saving on textbooks and wrestling these unfamiliar machines called washers and dryers.
Regaining focus on my run, I finally find myself back in front of J-Mac noticing that my arms, legs and confidence have only shrunk a bit. Throughout the days, our confidence will come and go as we walk into the unknown of college life.
I suppose we’ll just have to take things one day at a time. One Easy-Mac bowl at a time. One English paper at a time. One wild night at a time.
