I came back to Binghamton this past August a different person than I was two summers ago. Those two years gave me countless experiences I'll never forget. I've learned a lot and am definitely more mature. However, that doesn't mean I've made zero mistakes since coming back to school. I've made plenty.

1. I tried to marinate frozen chicken.

I thought I would be a real person and make something that takes longer than five minutes to prepare. I decided to marinate a piece of chicken. I'd seen my parents do it all the time. It couldn't be that hard, right? I was wrong. It's hard. Little did I know, you can't marinate chicken while it's still frozen. Oops. I guess it makes sense to defrost the chicken first and then marinate it, not do both at the same time.

2. Spilling gas on the side of the car.

Growing up in New Jersey, I have never had to pump my own gas. Sure, I've gone to get gas countless of times, but before coming to school with a car, I had never pumped gas myself. My mom showed me how to pump gas when I moved in. It looked easy enough, two weeks later when it was time to refill the tank and I had finally aligned the car with the fill up station, I pulled the holder back too early. Let's just say I wasted about a dollar and lost my dignity. Don't worry, I went to get a car wash after the gas incident, so you won't smell gas next time I'm driving.

3. Making gluey pasta.

I swear I did it the exact same way that I make pasta at home, but it came out different and pretty gross, if you ask me. Oh wait, I had a bigger pot at home. Change is hard, especially when it comes to kitchen utensils. Who knew I would miss a pot?

4. Driving in the front way to campus.

On the first day of class, it made total sense to enter campus through the front way, like all of the other cars. Even though I could have entered through the back and avoided the highway. There's a reason that people avoid the highway in the morning. Who in their right mind chooses to sit in traffic? I did and I'm not too proud about it. A 6 minute ride turned into a 26 minute right. Yup, I'm still embarrassed.

5. And in general: feeling clueless about everything that real adults have to do.

Now matter how old you feel when you hear how long ago your favorite childhood television show aired or how many years it's been since your middle school days, it's still easy to feel like you know nothing and lack the capacity to be an adult. Don't worry though, real adults felt like this at one time too and they somehow managed. Soon you'll be one of them.