This is College

My advisor from the States shows up in a couple of days and I am nervous. She is a fair lady and I'm sure it will go fine, but I can't help but think that all four of my college years (six if you count community college) have been leading up to this observation. *whimper* Can you believe I'm actually going to be graduating?! I can't. I'll like...have a degree...whoa, heavy. Does that mean I don't get to be a college student anymore? Oh, no! This is just hitting me. No more late night movie parties? No more student discounts?! Let me paint a picture for you of college, so that we may remember those days and sigh at how good we really had it (or thought we had it. I suppose I'll find out in a few months.).

There is a special kind of comradry among college students. This crosses over state lines and even countries borders. A sort of understanding about where a person is at and what kind of issues they are dealing with. I suppose this can be true for any stage of life, but there is something special about the college student's life. Although you may be bogged down with four term papers due that week, have already pulled too many all-nighters that month so you're living on cheap coffee, your landlord hasn't replaced the blinds in your bedroom so you have to change in the closet, and you just picked up another shift at your minimum-wage paying job so you can keep a little more than pasta noodles and tuna in your cubbord; at least you're not doing it alone.

So, you combine your tuna with your roomate's mayo, borrow some bread from the guys next door and make yourself dinner. Or you put on another pot of Folger's Fake Coffee and settle in for a night of studying after a full day of classes and work. And as you sit your labtop computer on the kitchen table across from your roomate, you smile. Because while you probably won't sleep that night, neither will she. You will both be there to tell the other to, "stop checking your Facebook account and write that paper!" Though we complain more than we should about it, we all really love it. These are the moments we will remember.

We hope that we will learn from our numerous mistakes and walk away, ready to maturely face the challenges of the world. But I hope we won't forget to remember a time when writing a paper was our biggest heart ache and we only had ourselves to take care of. So that when the next generation bemoans the worries of a worry-free life, we can smile knowingly with love and a touch of nastalgia in our hearts and say, "yes, I too, was a college student once."

As much as I may miss what I have known for so long, I am looking forward to the future. I know that God is going to take care of me and there are some really cool things to come. So, pray for my lessons on Monday and Tuesday, if you would. And I'll be thinking about you guys as I continue down the path of preparing for next year and the years of "adulthood" to come.