I've spent all my summer at John Carroll, working and making the best of my summer by collecting as much money possible so that this semester can be an easy one. Now only days away from being back with the people I love, I just can't help but gush out all the feelings I've held in all summer. How I have missed my friends dearly so. I dreamed of seeing all of them at once instead of every once in a while and how I've dreamed that I will have another chance to live on campus and cherish every memory I make. The feeling of coming back is like opening your favorite book after putting it down for so long. You crack open it's delicate pages and you smell the familiar smell of the ink and you remember the stories that were told by the author. You start to relive all the memories you made while reading the book. The same thing applies to returning to our beloved campus.

I cannot wait to come back and make a difference at school. Over the summer, a lot of crazy and interesting things have happened to me and have inspired me to make a change. I want to use the pain and confusion I lived and turn it into knowledge and success. I want to better myself physically, mentally, and emotionally as well as change the view of the world for so many new incoming freshman and returning upperclassmen.

This school year will be one of my best, giving me a chance to grow into the shoes that people have left behind for me to wear, and it will be a chance to try new and exciting things. College is all about trying something you weren't sure you'd enjoy or being good at. You learn and you grow and sometimes the things you learn come in handy years later in life. You see all the flaws in the world and you want to fix them and you also become blind to new and different flaws. It's how things continuously change in our society and in our lives. The elections blind us from the real problems, the rude comments make us forget about the kind compliments, the evil in the world makes us believe there is no light at the end of the tunnel, but coming back to something familiar somehow opens up our eyes to see the new in the world. We will meet new leaders, new followers, people with new ideas and people who see the world differently than us, and it gives us a chance to jump into the future and see how we and everyone else grows.

This fall, I'm returning to my second home so that I can see the future in a whole new way.