For the past three years the University of Florida has been my home, and I have loved every minute of being a gator from the football games to the all-nighters. It is here that I have found life long friends, a sport I love, and received an awesome education.

Thank you to the University of Florida for accepting me three years ago. Over the past three years, I have had so many adventures and learned so many things, but it still feels like there is so much left to do, and unfortunately time is running out. My microbiology class in Turlington made me realize just how much I did not want to do nursing. However, it was in Larsen Hall where I discovered what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and Little Hall is where I decided my minor. Thanks to these professors and advisors, I am on my way to graduate school at the University of Houston - Clear Lake.

I am going to miss late night cram sessions in the Marston basement, avoiding tablers in Turlington Plaza, and the joy that is the Hub Chick-fil-A. I mean, what am I going to do without a potato and french fries, and how in the world am I supposed to tell time without without the bells of Century Tower? Also what will I do without all the Gators, animals and people included? How do normal people spend their Saturdays when there is no 100 degree weathered swamp to stand in for four hours while the Gators play? It's going to be tough reintegrating into the real world.

Perhaps most importantly it was RecStravaganza that changed my life for the better. Little did I know then, how much accepting the flyer from the rowing team would change my life. Now three years later, I can't imagine my life without rowing, and the friends I have made with it. As sad as I am to leave the classes and the campus here at UF, it doesn't compare to how sad I am to leave my friends. Graduation is getting way too close, and it has pretty much been decided that we are not going to talk about it because we don't want to spend our last few weeks crying. There is also a good chance they end up moving to Texas with me.

Thank you for everything UF, and goodbye for now. It really is great to be a Florida Gator!