Today has been a Sojourn day. It's been a day to plan ahead for the fall sports section, and a day to kick off the year with an article that was just published today. In the midst of much planning and writing and worrying (oh, the worrying) I found an interesting piece I wrote a long time ago. At least, nine months ago seems like a long time.
I quite literally wrote the following editorial in the backseat of my parents' car on the way to my hometown of Cincinnati for Christmas break. It is so weird to read it nearly a year later, and see how much I've matured both as writer, student, and person.
Written on 12/15/10, between 5-9 o’clock p.m., while riding in my car to Cincinnati:
It’s been 108 days. No, this is not some obscure Lost reference. This is the number of days since I first stepped foot on the beautiful campus of Indiana Wesleyan University to be a full-time student. Since then, I have only left for the occasional midnight Wal-Mart run and a long weekend for Thanksgiving. But now, I’m in a green 2001 Chevy Prison Cell, speeding at 70 miles per hour to an extended vacation back to the place I once called home.
But IWU is my home now.
Driving off campus knowing that I won’t be back for 23 sunsets-over-the-student-center is a terrible feeling. As soon as the back tires hit Interstate 15, I am hit with depression like a coffee addict when McConn closes. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. I’m as clueless as a freshman on the first day of NSO.
Rest assured, tomorrow morning I will roll out of bed and start getting ready for my 9:25 World Changers class. Then, when I realize that class will not be taking place (hooray!), I will text a friend and ask if they would like to go to lunch at Wildcat for one of their legendary burritos. When night falls, my ping pong hand will start to itch and I will try to head over to the game room in the student center for a couple rounds. Finally, dejected, an hour before I remember to check in for curfew I will consider going to fatmeal and drowning away my depression in some lukewarm scrambled eggs.
Sure, go ahead, make fun all you want. Maybe I love the ‘WU a little too much. Maybe letting out a heavy sigh after seeing signs that said I was leaving Marion is a little extreme. Maybe the car ride “home” is a little too early to start the countdown to coming back. But maybe, just maybe, I’ve found my favorite spot, the happiest place on earth, my own personal Disneyworld.
I’m not saying that it’s perfect here by any means. It would be ignorant to say that even a place as great as IWU doesn’t have its flaws. Sometimes I just feel like dancing and chugging some Naked Juice, and this university does not quite encourage that. But despite its blemishes (which are not nearly as numerous or injurious as they are at other colleges; think about that the next time you complain about the puke tree outside Elder) I can honestly say that this place makes me happy. The people here, the faculty, the traditions and the overall atmosphere simply make me smile like a red package claim slip in my mailbox.
I’m almost “home” now. The roads are becoming more familiar, but somehow less friendly. I may be leaving behind classes, homework and stress, but the farther I get from IWU, the more thankful I am that I will probably be here all summer.
Graduating is gonna be tricky.
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