dusting off

ek, I always swore that if I didn't update my blog regularly, then I was going to delete it, what can I say.. I'm attached.

As fast as August fell away, so too has September. It's already mid-month and I am in the 4th week of my semester as a senior. My last autumn season in Happy Valley.

A lot has changed since my last entry nearly two months ago, at that time I was living by myself and soaking in the summer months while my friends went home for the school-year-break, but in the beginning of August, I moved to the west side of town and moved into the most charming old apartment you've ever laid eyes on. I also gained 4 ridiculously amazing roommates.

Our modest brick exterior and cherry hardwood floored interior apartment has been a haven to ourselves and the ones we love. We have lots of space (5 closets, 5 girls, the bliss!), built in shelves and an irreplaceable sense of community, friendship and love. We love hosting people and lighting candles. It's been great.

On the side of academia, I am trying to remember that in the midst of not wanting to study and do hours of homework, that this is presumably the last year of my life where I will be a student. An undergrad at least. Soon the cliche college things will be a way of the past and it will no longer be acceptable for me to roll out of bed in jeans and a worn hoodie, rush to class, spend money I don't have in starbucks and stay out until 4 a.m., with an obvious sleeping until noon the next day. This is the final year, this is it, and I have to be reminded of that when I get the urge to throw my computer out the window, which happens often. I love learning, and this is my last time, in the foreseeable future, that I'll be able to do so in a classroom setting. The marketplace of liberal and idealistic ideas that come about in a classroom discussion are something that are so precious and unique to my four years in college.

My "obligations that don't feel like obligations because I love them so much" are now in full swing, almost like there was never a break between spring and fall. I'm interning at a great non-profit and it scarily makes me feel like a grown up. I dress up, have a cubicle and even an email address with a company domain. What can I say, I'm living the dream. Thon and all things Navigators have picked up as well; imagining my school year without them is similar to a beach without an ocean -- just a desert --- what's the point? The amount of joy I reap from my extracurriculars is such a blessing and probably will leaving the biggest impact on me post-graduation.One more year of them, this is really a case where I need to remember to absorb every moment, good and stressful.

And so senior year begins. The last year of my twenty-somethings where I'll be enrolled in school. The last year of my twenty-somethings where my parents are still paying my rent, my car and cell phone bills.

I think it's going to be a great great year.