Saturday, May 29, 2010

Transition.

Well, I officially received my diploma and have left the [great?] state of Indiana. It still doesn't feel like I'm done with college, mostly due to the fact that I'm used to leaving for the summer...so it'll be bizarre come August when I continue working while everyone else (including both of my brothers) return to school.

So far, life after graduation hasn't been that exciting. I moved back the day after graduating and unloaded and reorganized my room that Tuesday. In all, I think I took about eight garbage bags full of clothes/stuff to Goodwill...purging definitely feels good. Since then, my youngest brother Josh graduated from high school...so I was busy helping my mother get ready for the open house and such. This past week was pretty uneventful, aside from a quick (but awesome) 24 hour trip to Minneapolis to see my best friend Missy and my favorite team, the Minnesota Twins. [Target Field is beautiful, btw...definitely worth checking out].

Perhaps the only thing I've had a hard time adjusting to is this whole living at home business. Not many of my friends live in Sioux Falls anymore, so I've had to figure out what to do with my spare time. I've resorted to working out....a lot. Rotating between Jillian's 30 day shred and the McKennan Wellness Center, in which my work out time is filled with running, weights, and swimming, I'm definitely feeling more energetic and just feeling much better about myself, in general.

I finally start my job on Tuesday and I'm super excited. I'm ready to be a big girl and to figure out what exactly I'll be doing until November. And I'm SUPER ready for that paycheck.

But, in the meantime, I have two more days to do whatever I want...so I'm planning on enjoying that as much as I can :)

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

It's Almost Time....again.

Attention followers:



I graduate in 12 days (it should be noted that when I looked at my calendar to start the mental countdown, I realized I had not switched said calendar to the month of May...time is going way too fast...). I pick up my already purchase cap and gown tomorrow. Holy crap.

This time always brings about 12,000 sentences that contain phrases such as "this is the last time that..." Take a look at my Twitter feed today, and every single senior (that's probably not true...but a rough estimate) tweeted "Last undergrad class ever!" in some form or another. This is not to say that I am annoyed by this, because I tweeted something very similar. It's just overwhelming. Always having to think of an event or situation as potentially the "last time I will ever do this with this group of people."

Another example.

Today, I dropped a bag off in Scheele (imagine a really high-class, fancy apartment building...then think the opposite...that's Scheele dormitory) that I borrowed from a friend when I went to Europe (those blog posts are being postponed until summer FYI). I ran into someone that I had been working closely with for the past two years or so and she said, "Well I suppose this might be the last time that I see you for awhile." My response? "Yeah, I suppose so."

I don't like to think of graduation as a time of "lasts." I want this to be an exciting, intoxicating couple of weeks with some of the greatest people I have ever known. Who knows what this summer will bring, or where we will all be six months from now...what I do know is that I don't want to spend "my last moments" with friends getting all emotional about it.

Now you might be thinking..."Why Courtney, you are soulless."

False.

I will be incredibly emotional for the 10 hour road trip back to South Dakota...and numerous other times following that. I would hate to reflect back on graduation five years from now and just remember spending it over a box of Kleenex. So I'm turning my potential tears into laughs and I hope you'll do the same.

Last Monday night was my final Student Senate meeting. A bunch of people had asked me if I was going to cry during my final report, and I said no, I won't. But I have to admit, I thought about it. Looking out and seeing all of these people that I've grown to admire....it was hard to picture my Monday nights without them. I looked at Danny and thought about everything that we had worked through this year...looked at Justin and pictured him as a 1st grader (then I laughed...in my head)...looked at Collin and remembered high school graduation. You get the idea. But I survived without a tear...until I got to my car. So I'm not emotionless...I'm not trying to be cynical. It's just that I could cry about it every day, and all day, if I wanted to. Life, as I know it, will be changing in more ways than I can even imagine.

That realization makes this whole process difficult enough.

So I'm [attempting] to give the tear ducts a rest until May 17th.

Until then, I'm going to share some favorite memories from senior year...[in no particular order]:
  • SigEp's Slip and Slide party and my poor, poor attempt to pre-pre-pre-pre game.
  • Luau...great times with my favorite people and my favorite date :)
  • All of the Twins/White Sox games (made it to 4 between the 2009 and 2010 seasons)...thanks Collin!
  • Getting kicked out of the potential 5th Twins/Sox game (although, chronologically it would have been #2)....thanks Zach!
  • All of the traveling! Went to New Orleans during the summer (ELCA national youth gathering with Valpo!), Minneapolis to see Josh run, fall break in Washington, DC with Collin and Luke, San Diego in February with Ryan, Europe (also known as the best trip ever) with the boys, and Montana with NCUR. I'm sure there's been more...
  • All of the dance parties...for obvious reasons.
  • Almost getting a bid to SigEp...thanks Collin! No thanks to Steve...
  • Giving the charge to the student body at Opening Convocation
  • Playing piano at Bethel Church.
  • Weekly meetings with Danny, Tim, and Bonnie...especially the one when Danny said poop.
  • American Home field trip on Halloween (and the day after the Halloween dance party)
  • Tim Garibay.
  • You get the picture.
I loved senior year. But enough sentimentalism for now...I'll leave you with the second Jon McLaughlin song that I'm attempting to cover...



All my best.