First Year

Late nights. Early mornings. Late mornings and early nights. We don't always  go to class. We sometimes fall asleep. We  procrastinate, but not always. We work hard. We work part time, and no one respects us. We're on a budget, but we're living life on our own for the first time. and its wonderful and it's scary. We're independent and at the same time so dependent on everyone and everything. We need each other to survive and to thrive. Study groups, sports teams, and sororities. We are stronger as a team.

Professors and parents laugh at us and  call us children, but we know that we are wonderful and free. We drink and study. We live in libraries and in frat houses. But it takes all kinds, and the experience is worth it- though not the price if you ask any of us.

We cry about our lost loves, our homesickness, we miss our moms and dads. But we get stronger. We make new friends, it comes easily enough. We are all thrown into this big melting pot called the university, and though we all may not say it, we truly know that we are all one in the same. Here for our own reasons. To prove to the world and ourselves that we have this in us. The drive and inspiration that is needed to not only succeed but to thrive. To do all that is offered to us, and turn nothing down.

Our time is valuable and limited at the most. We go to games, and dance, and sing, and fuck, and fight. The pain is our reward, but we fight through it. We know that in four years this will all be over, and we must have lived through it and survived. It is easy enough.

We strive and we take drugs to stay awake and study and learn. We write papers and get papercuts, arthritis  and hunched backs. We wear glasses because our eyesight is going bad from all the reading. We don't care. We gain weight and lose it all again. We run out for late night pizzas and snacks. and we eat pancakes in the middle of the day because breakfast is served until 3pm.

Everything is backwards and everything is normal  to us and we don't question it. This is our way of life, and we are all in it it together. We step on each other and stab each other in the back and cut throats to get to the top in the end. And we'll know that it was all worth it. In the end.