2017 has been a crazy year for me, to say the least. Not just in terms of current events, but my personal life as well. I finished my first semester of my junior year at Washington State University while completing a plethora of difficult classes that I did not have much faith in passing.

I think it has been a year that everyone should reflect on because our world may be giving us even more magnificent spectacles than it already has, but it has also given us a glimpse of how dangerous it is becoming.

There have been many significant events throughout the year, and it is impossible to remember them all. So I will just give you a quick recap of some of the things that caught my attention. U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration was in January, and nobody could forget how he bragged about how his audience was larger than that of the previous president, Barack Obama, even though he used a photograph from Obama’s 2009 inauguration to attempt to prove it. Trump would continue making controversial statements throughout the rest of the year, including avoiding questions from reporters by diverting the subject or saying something vague.

Trump took some unexpected actions as president along the way. Most notably, he issued Executive Order 13769, which has become more commonly known as the “Muslim Ban.” The executive order banned refugees from entering the United States for 120 days and prohibited citizens of Somalia, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan and Libya from entering the U.S. for 90 days. There were eventually revisions to the ban, and Americans do not think about it as much these days, but the reaction to it further exemplified how divided the citizens of the United States really are.

The total solar eclipse on August 21 was also very noteworthy. On the first day of classes last semester, my anthropology professor took the class out to see the solar eclipse with special glasses. It was a quite a sight to see, and it is something I will always remember.

There were more hurricanes over this summer than ever, including Hurricane Harvey, which brought a significant amount of damage to the city of Houston in Texas, and Hurricane Irma, which devastated the Caribbean and parts of the Eastern United States. Those tropical storms left a lasting impact on me because it made me realize just how far the Earth’s climate change has progressed, even though I live in Washington.

Finally, there was the repeal of net neutrality by the Federal Communications Commission. This will give American internet service providers (ISPs) the power to charge more money than normal for visiting certain websites and block access to websites altogether. This is not to say that they will do this, but the fact that they can do this is quite disconcerting.

2017 has been quite a ride, full of many potholes in the road, but I never let any of them faze me. It is time to look to the future. I hope that 2018 will be a better year for not just me, but the world.