This isn't real.... I'm pretty sure just a few weeks ago I was moving all of my stuff into my dorm and settling in on campus for the first time. How am I already approaching the end of my first year in college? I cannot believe it went by this fast. When I was moving in, people kept telling me the year would fly by and I didn't really believe them. I thought they were just hitting me with some hopeful cliché to make the move-in process less daunting. Turns out, they were right. It really did fly by. It's strange how time passes while in college. The days themselves drag on mercilessly but the weeks and months go by in the blink of an eye.

I have a lot of feelings about finishing my freshman year. I feel like I am kind of dragging myself to the finish line academically. Professors love to cram everything in the last month of classes. Physically, I cannot wait to get out of here and go home. I am ready to eat actual food and sleep in a real bed again. I also miss my spacious and comfortable bedroom. But I dread moving out of my dorm like the plague. Moving in was so cute and fun, but moving out is going to be a royal pain in the ass. As happy as I will be to get out of this dorm and upgrade to fancier living conditions next year, a part of me will miss this space and how much it meant to me this year. In a weird way, I am a little attached to this room because it was my safe space and my domain for this crazy roller coaster of a year.

I do love my dorm, even for all of its flaws. My roommate and I were blessed to get a larger room with its own private bathroom, which means its basically the penthouse suite of dorm life. But our toilet barely works. And it has barely worked since the day we moved in and we always swore we would call someone to fix it and we just never did. Don't get me wrong, it does everything it needs to do and we keep it clean, it's just a very stubborn toilet. It takes multiple flushes to dispose of any contents, including tiny bits of toilet paper. Now that is just pathetic because the toilet paper they supply us with here is about as thick and effective as tissue paper. Our toilet also shreds the living hell out of the paper when it flushes and spews toilet paper confetti back out after every flush. While this has been an annoying pain all year and we should have called someone to fix our porcelain throne as soon as we discovered the problem, in a weird way, it gave our dorm character and gave us some good laughs. So, while I can't wait to have a cooperative toilet next year, our piece of crap (pun intended) toilet this year has contributed to my unique freshman experience.

When it comes to my social life, I am definitely a bit sad about moving out for the summer. While I do miss my friends from back home and the pace of my old life, I will really miss my squad of friends from this year. I will miss my roommate terribly because we do everything together, and I will miss our amazing friend group (including the future roommates!) that accompany us on our many food-related outings and Target adventures. I'll miss our late night Cook-Out runs and intense games of Cards Against Humanity. It will be weird not having these people within walking distance of me at all times. Everyone lives so far away from each other and has other summer plans, so as much as I look forward to being home, I know I will miss my people.

I love my campus, I love my professors, and I love what I am studying... but for the love of God, get me out of here. Of course, I don't mean forever. I really do love it here. But Sweet Baby Jesus if I write one more paper, read one more article, or conjugate one more verb, I might combust. While there are plenty of things about college life that I will miss over the summer, studying is not one of them! So Hallelujah on High! We are almost free!

Freshman year has been a whirlwind. I am still trying to figure out how it all passed by so quickly. That's it. My first year of college. One down, three to go.