I'M ALIVE!

It just dawned on me that it's November, and I'm going home for Thanksgiving in only twenty days. I've survived nearly three months of college!

I definitely remember being at home during a particularly lazy summer and wondering several times if I would end up imploding in college. Well, I haven't been doing everything perfectly, but I can think of a lot of ways that it could be much worse. So praise the Lord. I'm happy.

I guess I'll share a couple things I've learned:

1. You are probably not going to have everything in college life settled in the first two to three months. Patience is a virtue, and you're going to have to be happy while not necessarily knowing what's going to come next or who's going to end up being your best friend or any of that.

2. A lot of people have a lot of opinions and while it's not good to shun other people because of their opinions, it's also not a good idea to try and take everyone's opinion and make it your own. Sometimes it is really good to just respectfully disagree and go on your own merry way.

3. Don't take everything so seriously. Make sure that you make time in your schedule for something that just straight-up makes you happy.

4. (I kind of learned this in high school, but this was consolidated in college.) Most of the really good classes are going to inundate you with work. A lot of the classes with really engaging professors will also be coupled with lots of work.

5. You are probably going to walk by some pretty weird things. I was walking back from the library with my roommate during the night and we were witnesses to a group of people on really weird bikes--I saw a penny-farthing bike, and a neon bike and other weird things. They were playing pump up music. And it was pretty long past midnight. Which brings me to another thing...

6. Especially if you end up in a college like mine, don't be surprised if you find yourself walking back from a library in the wee hours of the morning more than once. Which brings me to another thing...

7. Pitch-blackness is okay. Rain is okay. But when you combine them it's actually kind of depressing.

8. Buy vitamins and put them in your dorm. They're expensive but they help when colds are spreading.

9. Just because you've started to live by yourself and have some adult responsibilities now, doesn't mean that you're an adult just yet. This is a good thing--be happy while you're young! Don't let the workload or anything else get you down--these are the last years of semi-childhood that you have. Be happy!

10. You are probably going to miss your parents at some point (unless they were really horrible to you while you were at home). That's why a lot of people stay close!

I might add more advice tidbits, but more likely I'll have to go through more college in order to find those. For now I hope this helps someone...