Hello, dear readers.

I have procrastinated to write the article for this week. I usually wait until nearly the last minute to create a topic and jabber on about my ideas. But, for this week, nothing hit me.

So, as I am sitting in the Mervyn Sterne Library of UAB, I am looking out the window of my study area, dazing at the place I love to call home. The drought has caused the grass to turn a yucky amber yellow color. The trees are mostly Evergreens, so there aren’t any leaves changing. It’s usually a ghost town around campus on weekends—the opposite of one might think of a Birmingham university.

My class-load has been pretty heavy lately; my current struggle is attempting to learn three chapters of statistics before my test in two weeks. And what makes it worse is that I don’t know any student who has taken this class and achieved the grade of an A—all Bs. Yippee.

I do miss my family, especially since I haven’t seen my dad in more than a month. I miss my step-mom who goes shopping with me, my brother who plays Xbox with me, as well as my mom and step-dad who are living it up in Wisconsin for a Green Bay Packers game. I also can’t forget my cool hippie-sister in Nashville and my hipster-sister back home.

I came across a song a few minutes ago that resonated with the way I am feeling right now: Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve. The song talks about how life is a bittersweet symphony: “trying to make ends meet.” In a world of untied strings, it’s nice to remember that all strings are not meant to be tied. They may never become tied. It’s all about doing what you can at whatever phase you are in your life. For me, I am a college student who is financially stable and decent at making good grades. I am so very thankful for what I have, but, it’s very easy to forget that it is not mandatory to have a perfect life.

Sure, like the songs says, “you’re a slave to the money, then you die,” but, you know, that’s OK. In a world like today’s, that’s just a fact of it all. However, life does have its free moments. The laughs, the cries, and the successes make it all worth it. It’s a bittersweet symphony.

Now, I must get back to my homework. But before I leave, please, remind yourself that life isn’t a cookie cutter. Yes, it’s bittersweet like a ginger snap and fluid-like like a symphony. Life is going to keep on going, and it’s your job to make something of it.