Sitting here in one of my close friend's rooms, I'm thinking one thing: freshman year, thank you.

This has been a year of new experiences. Experience I couldn't get anywhere else.

I've met people I hope to know for a lifetime, and gained memories I know I'll keep just as long.

This city has brought me to myself. I've found myself standing staring at things with nobody beside me. I feel like my own person. There's something about deciding what I'm going to do today that makes me feel like I have complete control over my own demise and success. I've found nothing more motivating than complete responsibility.

I have seen who I am. With nothing but my own time, this year has provided a clear mirror. I see my habits, I see my shortcomings, I see all that I am within an environment that I bargain with alone.

I truly love my friends. I've gotten to know people this year from all over the world, and I feel blessed to have love from all around the world. Taiwanese, Spanish, Singaporean, Turkish, Polish, Luxembourgish love! Love from so many states as well! Friends, you are loved--more than I could put into words, more than I can put through your heads, more than I can bear in my heart. You are loved. Thank you.

Thank you for late nights by the sign, thank you for Fifa (and yes, Fortnight), thank you for venturing into a city unknown to us all with me. Thank you for teaching me what I haven't known, for sharing your music, for telling your truths and making your jokes. Thank you for the food, for the fun, for the joy. You are my family.

San Francisco, thank you for being gorgeous. Your houses are my home. Thank you for stopping me on the street. Thank you for putting grass under my feet and trees over my head. You'll never go unnoticed.

To my professors, you won't read this but I do appreciate the discussions, the homework, the challenge. Everybody sleeps on you (and sometimes you sleep on your own jobs--I forgive you, we're all people), but to learn is to be as human as humanity can manage--so thank you for facilitating education as much as you have. In your debt, I shall work.

Haight street, I pray for you. Thank you for your culture and kind people, the ones I think about and wish to talk to--yet who I can't seem to get to the core of, because they've lost that part of themselves as well. Or perhaps not lost, simply still searching. Searching in a lost world. The ones who struggle are in my heart. Luke and Maddy, you're not forgotten.

Hayes Healy third floor, thank you. Thank you for having a free piano, and a lounge where drunk people can get their hair cut.

Thank you for bringing continents together on a single floor.

Thank you to the sky, whose story is pure. Your colors are more alive than the eyes that capture them. You are eternally generous, we are eternally thankful.

Thank you to my roommates, who've been beyond kind and familial. I couldn't have asked for a more welcoming space to come home to after studying till two in the AM. Our San Tung dinners gave a new meaning chicken wings. I wish the best for you.

In the end I am still. I am happy, I am simple. I have learned not to ask for what shouldn't be asked, and to expect only what will happen. Yet I know my causal role in relation to my reactionary one. I am the pen to my paper. I am my own force.

I have nothing but thanks to give for a year well lived and time well spent. Though it is over, there are more years to come. I'll see you in the fall.