Before finals consume my life.

Tonight marks the start of the library's end-of-semester hours. Otherwise known as the library telling me to crack down on my finals. I imagine that our conversation would go something like this:

Me: "Oh look, cool things on the Internet."
Harold F. Johnson Library: "Internet is bad for you. It doesn't want you to succeed. Come here baby, I'm open until 2am and I'll shine my fluorescent light on you until you have three portfolios plus an independent study paper to hand in."

So yeah, it's crunch time. But at least this time around, the weather is nice. At the end of last semester, it was typical a New England winter-gloomy, gray, and self-absorbed. People seem to come out of hibernation here when the sun comes out. This weekend I looked around and people were frolicking in fingerpaint and swinging on swings and photosynthesizing in the sun. Those tour groups wandering around were lucky to catch us on such a good day. These azaleas are lovely, but they don't last all year round.
I've been thinking a lot about this past year. It's definitely shaped me more than any other academic year I've experienced. But it's also felt very fast and packed, so much so that I've felt disconnected from it sometimes. Last night as I was falling asleep, I likened it to watching a movie from a train window. But now that I'm more lucid I dislike that analogy, because who the hell watches movies from train windows?

Perhaps my year has been more like a series of vignettes that just kind of formed before my eyes and all involved me in some way. I was pretty much the same person all throughout high school, because I was scared of being anyone else. So this whole year I've been trying on different ways to be, and I still haven't got a clue which one fits best. I feel like this year has been so short, but also so packed. When I think back to orientation, with everyone sitting on the asphalt of the quad playing "Wagon Wheel", it feels like five years ago. But I still can't believe it's already almost May.

I think this summer it would do me good to write a ton, drink lots of iced tea, and get a few new freckles and some perspective. I'll go for walks in the reservation behind my house, relearn how to play guitar, make money, travel, visit friends, and come back to school with both feet on the ground. That would be a nice feeling.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa