It’s the end of the academic year… my last year with my dorm friends. They will be going on to new things—one to law school, two to med school, one to graduate school, and others to jobs. And me? I’ll still be here, courtesy of switching my major from Zoology to English. Es lohnt sich.
How do I measure this academic year?
- In frappucinos consumed at 4 AM
- In inadvertently funny quotes
- In circles around a roundabout and in hours in Miami vans
- In questions and answers
- In midnight Shriver runs and in trips to the MacCracken Market
- In interviews, job applications, and scholarship applications
- In time spent in office hours
- In squirrels on the quad
- In naps, both planned and accidental
- In moments of inspiration and hours of writer's block
- In pictures and videos on Facebook
- In hours spent in the gym, and in the number of giants, straddle backs, and series attempts on beam
- In card games and in games of Mafia, and if anyone is reading this, we need to play one last game of Mafia
- In “ahh, I’m almost ready to graduate!” moments of panic
- In pages, sentences, and words (I read 6,238 pages, wrote 124 pages and 40,097 words, spent 26 hours watching assigned films, and spent 4.5 hours leading class discussions, in case anyone was wondering).
- In the number of German words that I have to LEO (yes, I just made that into a verb)
- In group meetings at King and in the Bishop basement
- In love and honor (yeah, I'm getting sentimental now, so I need to stop)
I'm not sure if I'm blogging again next semester, so in the event that I'm not, I also have some people at Miami whom I'd like to publicly thank:
- my German professors, especially Dr. DiDonato and Dr. Sanders, who convinced the financial aid department to fund my study abroad program, and whose efforts led to students being able to use their scholarships on all Miami-approved study abroad programs. Also, thank you to the department for the Marion Lee Miller Award.
- my English professors, who made me feel at home in a new department immediately, and also to the department for nominating me for the Craver-Overton Scholarship. I'd especially like to thank Dr. Powell for being my Summer Scholars advisor; Dr. Minich for letting me be her UA, for taking the time to meet with me every week, and for helping me revise my "Paradise Lost" paper; Dr. Gillespie, who never let me get away with sloppy thesis statements, and who also gets to put up with me as a future UA; and soon-to-be-Dr. Rushford-Spence, who asked me why I wasn't an English major and then dragged me over to the chief undergraduate advisor to talk about upper-level classes.
- the Honors Program, which has provided me with endless opportunities for getting involved at MIami. In particular, thank you to Kari Taylor, who is probably the most approachable person at Miami, and who didn't get mad when I changed her name plate to read "Crusher of Dreams," and Dr. Haynes for her support over the past 4 years.
- Miami Gymnastics, just because they're awesome. At meets, we are the loudest team out there because we genuinely enjoy spending time together and doing the sport that we all love. Everyone else recognizes us for being the loudest and most supportive team out there; we won the Spirit Award at Nationals this year!
- my Bishop friends, all of whom are brilliant and who are going to do amazing things after they graduate and leave me behind. They're going to law school, med school, grad school, ahh! They're awesome.
- my English major friends, who live and write papers in King with me, and who also collect quotes.
- and the Scholar Leader community, which I'm extremely excited to join next year.
Have a great summer!
