I really can't believe that I am less than a month away from the end of my freshman year of college. I can't believe that I won't see my new best friends everyday anymore. I can't believe that my roommates and I will no longer share Saturday morning breakfast together, giggling over the embarrassment of what we did or said the night before. I can't believe that I'll be moving out of the box I once thought I could never fit all of my stuff in (I'm still surprised as how much of my stuff actually fits in here anyway) but now call home. I can't believe a lot of things will end, and how fast this school year seemed to pass.

It's funny to me how much I wished for the next weekend or vacation from school and now I'm wishing for more time. I miss my friends from home, but there really is something about the insanity of college that makes you beg for more. This first year was by far the biggest learning experience of my entire life.

Let's be real, no one can really get you ready for college. Sure, I had high school teachers who pushed me to what I thought was my breaking point of how much homework I could do in one sitting, or my friends and I got in fights and made up making me think I was ready to live with other people. Oh boy, I was wrong. No one could have prepared me for the first semester of homework that the professors kept handing out like candy, or the fact that I was living in an actual box with three people that I had never spent a full day with. No one prepared me for the eight different kinds of fries and multiple stations of fried food that would be served at every single meal, and not to mention the ice cream machine that screams my name every time I walk past it. No one prepared me for the people who talk at full volume in the library even though they know that they are in a library. There was a lot I didn't know about college. I think the best part of all of the things that nobody could have prepared me for in this new chapter of my life is the fact that at this exact time last year I felt like I was completely ready for college in every aspect.

My parents did a great job of teaching me to clean and push me to do my homework, but I was never prepared for the full commitment of my new relationship with college. Everything you do is related to school and that was never the case for me. Sure, high school was a place I spent a lot of time involved in multiple clubs and organizations, but I came from a place where there was places to go and things to do right down the road. I'm not saying that this isn't the case for college, but I was inserted into the bubble of college where you eat, sleep, do homework, procrastinate, hangout with friends, and go out on the weekends. It is a different kind of lifestyle than living under the roof of your parents.

It's so funny to me about all the things I thought college would be like, and not to say that I was completely wrong, but I am so glad that I wasn't right. I have accomplished so much in this past school year. Becoming a half-adult (because let's face it I'm not ready to be a full-blown adult yet) has been so challenging, fun, tiring, and everything else in between. I really don't think I'm ready for yet more change moving into a different building with different neighbors and different classes, but since I've made it thus far I'm ensured that I can do it again.

So, here's to the roommates who put up with me, not that they had a choice. Here's to the people who lived down the hall from me and became the ones I confide in. Here's to the professors who made me want to scream at the top of my lungs during lecture, but helped me grow as a student. Here's to the friends I made during classes with a mutual eye-roll at the next assignment we didn't have time for. Here's to the side of campus I won't get to see everyday next year. Here's to all the things that made this year what it was. Here's to the first year of college, the one I will never forget.