They say college is the best time of your life and that your four years fly by; before I came to Syracuse, I was a huge skeptic of that. I was heartbroken, knowing I’d have to leave behind my friends and my family, the only things that I had ever really known, for someplace where people “Bleed Orange?” I’ll admit, I cried after my parents dropped me off, but through struggling to figure out which bathroom was the cleanest to use or how to navigate around the quad, I soon found myself at home. Taking the long walk back to Shaw felt like coming home at night and the quad was just like the little quaint park back home. I always knew I had made the right decision choosing Syracuse but freshman year only clarified that; so thank you.
To my roommate:
I was so worried about having to share a room with someone for the entire year, like what if she didn’t speak English, or we're polar opposites. But from that first night we went out, I knew we were destined to be more than just two strangers in passing. Thank you for always listening to my rants about our horrid professors or staying up late to spill gossip about the stupid boys upstairs. Thank you for wandering down Comstock with me at all hours of the night in a desperate attempt to find a frat party and dealing with the insanity that was Shaw Hall. But most importantly, thank you for being there through everything, through thick and thin; I’m so grateful to have had, and still have you in my life.
To my friends:
I can honestly accredit most of my success and happiness here to you guys. Thank you for preventing me from sitting alone at dinner, because we all know how scary that feels. Thank you for being my family away from home, putting up with my stupid sicknesses or listening to the same old stupid story I’d probably told a million times. No matter what, I knew you guys always had my back and would be there for me after whatever stupid decision we made the night before. You spam my phone with texts no matter what the hour and cover my instagram photos, but honestly I couldn’t be more proud to call you my friends.
To the dinning hall:
I’m not sure where to even begin with this, considering half of the food probably wasn’t edible or leftover from the day before. In that case, thank you for preventing me from getting a freshman 15 (though if I’m being honest, I probably still got it from all those late night Calios and watery beers at parties). Thank you for teaching me the value of innovation. I can’t count the amount of times I took ice-cream to store in the fridge for a late snack or combined foods to make my own version of a decent meal so I wouldn’t starve (oh how I value home-cooked meals now). Most importantly, thank you for only being a short walk down the hall on weekend mornings when I didn’t think I would be able to make it out of bed.
To the frat houses:
This deserves to be an entire novel in itself but anyway, thank you for always welcoming me with open arms every weekend (and honestly, weekdays too). There’s no where else I’d rather dance stupidly to some remix of Taylor Swift at or take drunk snapchats in the bathrooms. Thank you for teaching me the importance of dressing for success when going out, with frackets and run-down flip flops being my best friends; to the boy who spilled on my favorite shirt or when my heel got stuck in a floorboard, I still hate you … but, thank you, I needed that wake up call.
And honestly, thank you to the people I’ve met there. You’ve seen me at my best and frankly my worst, so thank you for always being there at the end of the day, even if I am constantly stealing your food (and good alcohol) and begging to use your “somewhat” clean bathroom.
Freshman year was honestly one hell of a year. There’s no other place I’d rather experience a snowstorm at a May concert or have a chicken escape in a frat house. Of course, times sucked and there were days when I just wanted to go home and just crawl up next to my dog. Nobody experiences happiness all the time. But at the end of it all, I can’t imagine living my freshman year any differently. So cheers to freshman year, of everything that I can remember of it, and to the year to come; may the odds be ever in my favor.
