silva rerum

if you’re lost, you can look and you will find me

At this, the end of the second week of school, I feel an immense and immeas­ur­able com­bin­a­tion of dread and excite­ment, of hope and cyn­icism. I worry incess­antly about school­ing, about my job, about my extra­cur­ricular duties. I won­der about what great pos­sib­il­it­ies could be in store for this year. I am not sure how I ought to feel about the mul­ti­tude of changes that abound. I can­not con­trol them.

For the first time since enter­ing uni­ver­sity, I do feel so ter­ribly old. Every year is a chal­lenge, of course, but this year feels as if it isn’t so intim­id­at­ing. It feels as if uni­ver­sity is an old friend of mine by now, study­ing is for me, old hat. If that is any indic­a­tion of how I will per­form in my aca­dem­ics this year, I am beholden to my fam­ily, my friends and my pro­fess­ors who have seen me up to this point.

Being at Science Frosh was a monu­ment­ally hum­bling exper­i­ence. I felt as if I were part of some­thing much big­ger than I could ever be; hear­ing the voices of so many first-​years peal with cheers until the walls and halls of Hebb rever­ber­ated was a magical exper­i­ence. I will work harder with the Science Undergraduate Society so as to not fail them or myself.

I must sound some­thing like a broken record by now, repeat­ing mes­sages of hope­ful­ness and optim­ism. I do not mind so much. It emboldens me. Unlikely as it is, I can­not help but feel cour­ageous. I hope that will be enough!