That dorm was your home for an entire year; it's where you met your friends and roommates; it's where you were only a short walk away from classes and the dining hall; it's where you personalized your room and had a convenient and huge study lounge. And now, someone else lives there.

Some other freshmen. Some other person who now has your room, which seems like only a second ago, you moved into and hugged your family" goodbye." They now have the big pretty window that you decorated with dorm lights and window stickers last year. They have their own pictures hanging on the wall, their own bed comforters and pillows and stuffed animals, their own microwave/fridge...

It shouldn't feel so weird 'cause after all, it's just a dorm. It only lasted a year.

But it's not just a dorm. It was yours and always will be. You were the one that made it a tiny house, a place to invite your friends over and watch TV and movies or gossip. You filled it up with everything that describes you. This dorm gave you a temporary home for your very first year in the college life.

I still work very close to where my old dorm is, and I still look up at my fourth floor window. The furniture was moved and there's new decorations on the window.

That window was where all my Christmas lights, my fake flowers that I taped to the frame, and my Halloween pumpkins all were. I looked up at that window my first day back at the Tercero Hall Circle at UC Davis, and thought:

So for all of you sophomores that had the chance to visit your freshmen dorm room, we might not miss it as much as we like our apartment-living life now, but it was the place where we got our start here. If you look at the window and take it personally that someone else is there, you're not alone.