Packing for college is like preparing for a new grade school year. But it's not. But it is. By the time junior year rolls around, you have a routine for packing for college. You know that you pack sweaters in bins, food in boxes, hangers in a bag, etc.; it gets easier. But each year you still have to do it.

Leaving for college each year means I am moving closer to being a teacher, but I am moving closer to being a teacher. Each year I am closer to wrapping that fact around my head while simultaneously getting excited to decorate my own “teacher room."

It means I have to say bye to everyone again, but “Hey, its been a long time!” to everyone else. This past weekend I was with all my college friends, and I was reminded why they are a second family to me. Like my family home in Maryland, my college family loves to sit around the table to talk and laugh and eat. Even though I say bye to my family, there I have one at school… and a break isn’t too far away.

I have to readjust my schedule…but I am really good at it now. I find a new time for dinner. I find new time for friends. I pick new dance classes. I use my old routine at a different time. I print off all the syllabi. I color code my laptop calendar. I keep a weekly list of homework. I pick my weekly “reading day.” As the quote goes “the only constant in life is change” epitomizes a student’s career throughout college. We are always redoing our routine, and it is exhausting but exciting. Each year I have tried something off-the-wall-new to me (swing dance, ballet, skiing), and it has been so rewarding.

I have everything I need, but I still go shopping. Like I have my shower caddy and good boots for snow, but I still need new notebooks and hoodies. Like in grade school you always have to go out and get “back to school" clothes and binders; well it doesn’t end once you get to college. But unlike freshman year, I have all the basics.

I finally know what clothes I actually wear. Skip most of the shorts and the really nice dresses. I am only taking the ones I really like or the comfy ones I actually wear. Needless to say, I like to think I dress cute all the time, but more often than not I end up in a hoodie…but I don’t wear sweats…much!

And like the clothes, I finally know to take less decorations. I made a photo collage of all my close friends from school and home instead of packing a million little frames. All the leftover pictures went in an album and that comes along, too.

Freshman year there was tons of shopping, tons of packing everything way too early, but with college right around the corner I still have boxes and duffels to pack. All I need is a good music playlist though, and it’ll get done in a cinch.