It's a new year already, and in less than a week I'll begin my last semester at Fordham. It feels like yesterday that I began my freshman year; it also feels like a lifetime ago. The president of Fordham calls us "the visionary class of 2020." Three and a half years ago, that was a very amusing tagline; now it's a reality.
I've taken classes with excellent professors, some of whom were among the nicest people I've ever met. I've had great cultural experiences, from attending a spoken word poetry reading to singing with the University Choir at Carnegie Hall. I spent a week in Puerto Rico, went on a service project to Tennessee (and drove through states I'd never seen before to get there), and spent a semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I've made several very good friends, an interesting experience for me since my time at Fordham has been my first extended period of separation from my twin brother. I've decided that I want to embark on a career of writing poetry, and this March I'll be presenting a selection of my own poems at a conference in Las Vegas. This spring break I'll be going on a service project to New Orleans. (I'll finally see the mighty Mississippi; reading 'The Dry Salvages', after already having visited Cape Ann, will never be the same.) I'm going to graduate with four years' worth of memories of Fordham, and I'll hardly know what to do with them.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I still have a whole semester to go, with new classes, new events, and, I suppose, plenty of surprises. During this past semester, I wrote a bit of an apocalyptic poem ending with the phrase "there is no world anymore." My professor crossed it out as extraneous. He was correct; there is no use in getting ahead of myself.