Happy Places

If there's one thing I've really cherished, it is being at Penn State and meeting all of my best friends. Being decently far into the fall semester, I'm starting to realize that I graduate in May. MAY! That is crazy to me. The years have come and went and it blows my mind completely to the moon. I remember freshman year in the dorm meeting so many people, dancing in my heels with KW or doing the oddest of things with AF or SW. It was a grand year. I interned the summer after that and had a blast really getting know more African American engineering students who were silly just like me.  I remember the sophomore slump and becoming friends with JF and JM and even EW. I can't believe that I became treasurer and conference planning chair of my NSBE chapter in my junior year. I came into who I really was the summer after that - an art loving optimistic yogini with a taste for nautical elegant clothing. Here I am, senior year, president of my club, involved in so many things on campus, interviewing for jobs and figuring out what I will do as a real person. Time flies. This semester has been flying. Pretty soon, it will be Thanksgiving, finals and then Christmas and New Years. 

The all of these great things that happened to me maybe would not have happened had I not went to Penn State. I thank my lucky stars everyday that this was the one place I felt like I could see myself, way back in my senior year of high school. The little adventure my mom and I had here seems like miles away and yet I can remember everything that made me want to come here. The people were so so so friendly. The food was good, something more edible than the food I tried everywhere else. The campus is beautiful, one of the most memorable sights in my mind. The people who graduated from here are doing such big things. And those things ARE still here now. This place is one of the few that makes me happy just being here. And I know in my heart, I will be one of those alumni who flys out for a game when she can or buys all of the college kids at the bar a drink because I know what is like to watch your pennies. It's a place that makes you want to be a better person, to do the best you can in life. So my most heartfelt thanks, Dear Old State, for molding me into a great person and making me realize the potential I had inside just needed to be shined.