Thank You, Ohio State

Six weeks later and I finally post again! My life has been crazy with finals and finishing my internship and tutoring job. I graduate on Sunday (!!) in the Shoe with 12,000 other Buckeyes. Things are moving too quickly.

The weather has gotten much nicer, but I’ve found myself avoiding one last walk around campus. That’ll make these last four years feel too finite.

I’m currently sitting on the sidewalk on High Street in front of the OSU bookstore, along with a thousand other seniors, waiting to get a free Senior Crawl t-shirt. The things we do for drink deals!! Lauren and I can’t even look at each other every time we go out, so you know the Senior Crawl on Tuesday will be an emotional rollercoaster.

I don’t know how to write about this ending, because I can’t possibly encompass four years into five hundred words. But I’m going to try and start with thank you.

First, thank you to the people who read this blog, which has been a college project I’m so grateful I started. I can always look back at this physical artifact of the person I was at this time. I will be keeping up the blog as I continue my post-grad life, especially as my future plans will take me abroad again. (I will discuss this more here later once some things get sorted out.) Thank you for letting me talk about my life, travels, and passions.

Thank you, Lauren, Mary, Alexis, and Rachel (and past roommates: Sam, Morgan, Magee, and Lana) for being the best roommates these past four years. The five of us have been together since the very beginning, when I didn’t know anyone and didn’t know if I’d stay here for four years. Sometimes friendships are hard, but in the end we are always there for each other and I hope we can get together years from now and reminisce about our lives on Northwood.

Thank you to my high school friends who are still there for me, years later. Visits to you and from you have enriched my college experience substantially, because I know that we can always come back to each other and pick up where we left off.

Thank you, Ohio State English Department, for being everything I needed in a major. The community in this department is unparalleled, and I’ll miss the bookish conversations and the professors who truly believed in both improving my writing and knowing me as a person. Thank you to my mentors and my peers who know what it means to love books and writing and put your whole heart into that.

Thank you, London, for being my home away from home and giving me access to the most miraculous history and cultures and people. I made global friendships, learned more about myself, and solidified my desire for lifelong curiosity through travel. I will forever be grateful I took the time away to not escape from reality, but find a deeper reality.

Thank you to my family, who still come up for my numerous choir concerts, for football games, or to drive me back and forth from Columbus. You guys know how much I hate change, and you’ve really been my rock through college. Thanks for supporting me in my next adventure.

Finally, thank you, Ohio State. You are a bureaucratic behemoth, for sure, but your camaraderie is unparalleled and you give a bunch of barely functioning adults a home. I hope you don’t change too much. As they say, I am forever indebted to you (literally).

As always, Go Bucks!