High school was a very curious time for many students like myself. With the extra freedoms from both the school's policies as well as one's parents, there was more room for someone to explore what they appreciated or were unsure of. The only problem is that the process is limited because even with the extra freedoms, you are still confined in one area around the same exact people every day for the next four years of your life. Because of this we lived in the now and thought of everything as a huge importance, such as "promposals" that we all knew were pointless anyways because it is just a high school formal, that were really just mediocre, everyday happenings.

Coming to the end of my first semester in college, I have had the opportunity to do a lot more than studying, and I am not referring to partying either. I am talking about realizing what is actually important to me and my life and what is not. For me, that started with friends.

I always thought those closest to me in high school would stick with me throughout my years in college, but as the end of senior year came along, I soon realized that I would have to make new plans and that would be to start over. I never really thought I would hang out with many of my high school friends all of the time due to our different interests, but I definitely believed I would run into them more often than I have. Which brings me to my thoughts when writing this blog entry.

The friends I have kept have been very minimal as I have found more people like myself to enjoy college life with. The concern with my prior friends brings up a topic very sensitive but also pretty common throughout many people's lives and relationships to many other people and I call it the "Ferris Wheel Phenomenon."

This phenomenon deals with a specific type of person that we all know. As soon as you begin to talk to them, you enjoy their presence of course, but as they keep talking, you feel the energy of the conversation and this person to grow dark or fall, kind of like a ferris wheel. At first they talk about day-to-day things, but it soon turns into gossip, and it is always about the last person they were with.

The idea of a ferris wheel comes from the idea that it is always turning. Just like this friend running from one person to the next. The ferris wheel is also known to stop time to time creating excitement and then disappointment for the rider, the rider being friend. Each position is a new person this friend runs to. The phenomenon I speak of comes from the gossip. Each person is brought about by excitement, where the friend is praising you, whether it be that they enjoy your company or talents or whatever, but they always seem to mention the last person they were with in some sort of negative light just like the previous position the ferris wheel stopped at.

As friends, we deny to think that this would happen to us until we begin to think about it. It becomes more clear when every time we meet with this friend of ours, they always have something negative to say about the last person they saw or met with whether it was a friend or not. But who is to say that we are any different. Most likely, we blindly fall victim to the same situation as our friend moves on from us to the next person or stopping position along the ferris wheel ride. Pretty sure after us, our friend has something smart to say to their next friend along the line, but still being positive to their face only to put them down to the next person after them and so on and so forth.

What I am trying to say is that we all have that one friend where face to face it is all happy-go-lucky, but the minute we are out of their presence, it is nothing but drama and negativity about us to the next person along their agenda, even if we did nothing wrong. It could be as simple as the way we dressed that morning but it does not matter. We are always seen below our friend in their eyes, but not to worry. It is most likely filled with jealousy and insecurities that they may face.

Our friend will never agree though because they are too blinded by the movement of being a ferris wheel with the shining, flashing, colorful lights to seem as lively as the next person, but beneath all of those lights and movements, they are nothing but cold, metallic machinery. And no one, especially me, has time for any of that.