As I walked through UW's quad today, finally liberated of the past impending finals stress, I felt like the college students propagated in films. Book in one hand, hydroflask in the other, I sat on a bench for several hours intently people watching, as clusters formed in large numbers sprawled on the green, waving blades of grass. The laughter poured ceaselessly in an echo chamber of joy, frisbees soaring in the sky and dogs basking in the radiant sun. While at my arrival sparse shade descended upon the cherry blossom trees, flower buds nearing bloom, and as time continued on, the darkness precipitated greater departures.

Several months ago it would have been slightly less pleasant in the same spot, decayed leaves fallen on the ground and chill air warding off the masses. I would have finished my first quarter of college, still completely unfamiliar of my surroundings and fearing the loss of precious time with little progression. I consider those months now to be a fundamental adjustment period to the daunting entity that is college.

With this last winter I have made new memories that have steadily taken the form of a string of polaroids on my wall, products of the experiences I had never encountered prior. The morning of my first snow I opened the curtain of my window to a bed of powdered white on the floor, emergent snowmen, some of which already defaced, meticulously crafted. My excitement for delayed midterms and endless snowball fights slowly dwindled as my overly ecstatic Californian self soon realized that schoolwork accumulated and snow was inherently capable of extreme wetness.

I attended classes that truly stretched my mental sanity in one way or another, struggling through the dynamic processes of electrochemistry and the defining humanism of communications. I grappled comprehending such a range of knowledge, but now have gained perspective of the intersection of the humanities and sciences.

Among the many encounters I have had with heightened emotions, some far too demanding and concentrated, I can genuinely say now with some inner contentment that college is something extraordinary in its makings. There is not a single second of the day that I associate with empty vacancy, as every fleeting moment serves some purpose to me. The few occasions I was able to just laze in my dorm room alone, reenergizing myself for the next task at hand, I exhaled and reflected on how much life could just go on.

With already two quarters completed now, I am going to make a more conscious effort to appreciate all that is college. A simple precursory glance today at a space of UW students jointly relieving themselves in the quad was everything I could have asked for in a school. It was a beautiful jagged agglomeration of the diverse feelings and experiences that take shape on campus, and my only hope is that these four years happen with immense deliberation.