Do you ever have the worst day? It's just one of those days where you wake up sleep-deprived, your friend is annoying you, your professors won't shut up and everything seems to be going wrong? You're not alone, we all have those times.

In high school, this was my same mood every single day. I woke up wanting to cry when the alarm went off, not wanting to get out of bed and repeat the same montonous schedule with the same irritating classmates I was forced to pretend to like for 5 days a week. When I committed to college, I swore I would change this. I swore I would become happier, funnier, and live my life the way I wanted to.

Looking forward now, it's been almost one full year since I first stepped on to the bricks and fell in love. The happiness I feel now is something I've only dreamed about the past four years. The only difference is that now, it's a reality.

This morning, I woke up refreshed after passing out from a late night of watching the Olympics with my sisters in the αοπ house that consisted of jumping up and creaming when our favorites won the gold.

This evening, my roommates and I rook our pet pig outside on south beach to sit in the grass for two hours, watch people play volleyball and invite our classmates over to play with him. We laughed, we joked, we pet dogs, walked around the field to enjoy the 78 degree weather and didn't go inside until sunset. Nothing major happened, but it was just one of those moments that I remember why I fell in love with Ohio in the first place.

There is something indescribable about the feeling of relaxing after a long day of classes, smiling and waving your classmates over to hang out, because now we actually enjoy spending time together outside of class. Now, I call my study group friends on the weekends and plan to grab dinner the following day together.

Whenever my roommate tells me she had a rough day and just wants to sleep for the rest of the afternoon, what do I do? I tell her to put on her coat because we're going on a smoothie date to my favorite local coffee shop she has yet to go to. Once we melted into the couch, we both just laughed because it was exactly what we needed after a difficult day. And when we walked into Chipotle to see the line was to the door, I whisked her away to her first ever Bagel Street Deli date. I hadn't been to this little, hidden deli since October, before the semester got crazy.

Sitting there together brought back happy memories because this place was the first ever breakfast date I had with my roommates on our first morning in Athens for move-in weekend. It made me remember the excitement and feeling of the novelty of exploring our new home when later that day, the six of us played volleyball in front of our dorm until the sun set and tuned the sky colors of blue, pink and purple. That was the night we marveled at the sky, the stars and the beauty of our end-of-summer bash before classes began.

There have been very few places that made me feel the way Athens does, and I thank God every single second of every day I spend here that I was given the opportunity to fall in love with my college, my classes, my professors and my classmates. Words cannot describe how content I feel, and it is truly a blessing. So the high school seniors reading this who are going through a rough time, trust me when I say you will find the right college and have your own comeback story to tell one day. Never lose hope, better times are ahead. I believe in you.