College Days

Here is my niece, Sarah, and I at the Twins game this past Monday.  She started classes at the University of MN this week, and has now been up here for 10 days.  Do you remember going away to college?  Being alone for an extended period of time for the first time in your life?  She's handling it like a superstar, much better than I did. 

I sort of remember the few weeks leading up to leaving for college...staying up as late as possible, spending every last second with old friends, promising that things wouldn't change.

And then you go your own way to a place where people don't know anything about you, and vice versa.  In some ways it's wonderful, and in others, terrifying.    Eventually things do change (thankfully) and you begin to shift worlds a bit.  Suddenly your focus is more on college and less on hometown life.  For some, this takes months, for others years.  But it does happen.  And hopefully you walk away with amazing friends from college and a few tried and true friends who stuck with you from high school.

I pulled out my diaries from college cuz I thought maybe there would be words of wisdom in there I could pass along.  I kept a diary/journal for each year of college....I thought maybe there would be something in there about my first few weeks...but no, just mindless dribble about boys.  Honestly - it was like Facebook on paper.  I had quotes, song lyrics, movie lines, you name it....all having to do with adolescent boys.  To read it now is like to bang your head against the wall, scream, and have an intense urge to shake the girl who wrote this crap until she realizes that life has a way of working itself out, if you allow it.

Note:  The last diary is 100% about John...and is kind of entertaining to read....but he also makes random appearances throughout the other books too. :)  I guess I always had my eye on him.

But college these days has changed SO much from when I was there just 11-14 years ago.  (Oh, holy hell, has it been that long??)  Anyway - in those days I didn't have a cell phone, no one had their own laptop, no wireless Internet, no skyping, no Facebook, heck - e-mail was just catching on!  I was paying $.10 - $.15 a minute to call anyone.  There was one month my phone bill was $300! 

So hang in there freshman Sarah!  Feel free to leave your own horror college freshman story to make my niece feel better!