1/4

I recall my primary school days–most likely fourth grade. This was probably the last year mathematics readily made any sense to me. I remember looking at numbers between 0 and 1 and the various ways to write them. One-quarter, 0.25, 1/4, 25% a pie which was cut in half and then in half again (you had me at pie!), etc. All ways of saying the same thing, one-fourth.

The reason I mention this, and the amount 1/4 so specifically, is because I just finished my first year of college. And that’s crazy to me. And crazy is really the best way I know how to put it. Freshman year flew by.

As horrible as my memory is, I remember Freshman Saturday (which used to be on a Sunday; now I know what Dr. Kubiak meant when he asserted that Freshman Orientation is too long). I remember walking out of Pioneer Chapel to meet my Orientation Group and Tutorial peers and thinking I’d never remember all 15 of their names (I have no faith in my memory). I remember the part of orientation that stood out the most: the fact that it was too repetitive for my liking. I remember when my registration got all kinds of messed up and I landed in Latin (something my readers may still be hearing about in 2019; I won’t forget that). I remember walking into Hovey Cottage (aka the Communications Office) and nervously introduced myself to the Comm staff.

Sometimes it’s amazing how and what things change.

Wabash is a place with great potential to change lives; I believe that. I sometimes feel that what I’ve learned in my first year of college was sufficient to the point where if I was dropped in the real world tomorrow I could still make something of myself. That was after one year here, let alone four.

I remember thinking early on in the process of it all that I was “suddenly a freshman again.” High school is best summed for me as three years of slow boredom followed by a year which refused to hit the brakes. So suddenly I was a freshman again and then, all at once, I’m not a freshman anymore.

To say I “survived” freshman year wouldn’t reflect how freshman year went for me. Not to brag, because I’m never one to brag, but I pretty much knocked freshman year on its butt. Considering how much I had to fight in my Latin class to earn a B-, I deserved a 3.4 in the first semester and then I earned a 3.7 this past semester–making the Dean’s List for the first time.

I’ve come to appreciate where I am and the opportunities present for me; I don’t know of many colleges that would welcome rising sophomores (as I’m not the only one) to live and work on campus over summer break. More on that later.

But I am a fourth of the way through college. I still haven’t figured out a major yet, but I’m working on it and I have faith that I’ll get there as long as I remain committed to finding it. And as I often tell my friends, just because a student majors in an area does not mean he/she is necessarily destined for that field. That is why, I assert, Liberal Arts are so important for students of all ages. A liberal education gives student experiences in areas he or she says are pointless in the present and makes them invaluable in the future. Need an example? The first half of this blog post is about the ways of writing 25%.

Summer Plans

As people may have noticed, this is my only post for the month of May and it’s being published very, very late. That’s mostly caused by my lack of a solid plan for the blog this summer. As I mentioned, I have a summer internship here at Wabash in the Communications Office and I’ve been spending a lot of time at work. I work “nearly” full-time for tax reasons. So when I’m not working, my mind isn’t really in its blogging space. I’m  much more likely to sit down, put on some music, and read a book.

So I don’t have any definitive summer plans and maybe that’s the way it should be. This summer I have a lot of adult responsibilities to take care of. On top of work, I also make and buy my own food. Food is the big one really. I am still in the experimental phase where I say “how little can I eat without starving.” I’m trying to be economical with my food while still making sure I don’t come home more gaunt than I already do.

That and I still believe that summer should be an amount of fun.

What I’m getting at is that I probably do have time to write a blog post at a twice-a-month schedule, but my intent with that schedule is not to push my experiences out onto the internet (I almost wrote “web” in case anyone forgot I was born in the mid 90s). Rather, I want to write a quality account of my life; that was the vision for this blog and is one I will not depart from.

In honesty, there may not be a lot of content on this blog in the coming months. I’m thinking that at worst there will be one post between now and August. I don’t know what life will throw at me between now and August 10 (my last day in the internship position) or if it will be blog worthy.

But my blog is not restricted to the tight boundaries of retrospect. I feel that this experiment of mine may have become a little too strictly retrospective: relaying my life story to whomever is generous enough to read it. I want to expand a bit though and to make my life a little more reflective. I’m considering a few different strategies to go about this, but I think it could be interesting.

I write this on Memorial Day 2016, may those who fought for freedom always be remembered. May those have fallen serve as a reminder that freedom has an immeasurable cost. May their sacrifice be a permanent statue of what it means to serve a greater good.

On a lighter note, AFC Wimbledon was promoted to Football League One over in England! I consider them my “second” team in England behind Manchester United and seeing as Manchester United has done little more than let me down for the past three years now, it’s nice to finally have my loyalty to a team be rewarded. Go Wombles!