I am here. Sitting in a desk thousands of miles away from the only place I have known. Among structures of brick and ivy, of glass and glory. Fresh faces, places, and stages of life mill about my identity. Water roars along my paths, books and minds stream down the avenues. Foreign tongues and familiar tastes blend into a definite student body.
It has started. Orientation week is spinning past, full of wild discoveries and countless first experiences. The once looming trials and opportunities are now rushing over the horizon in great haste- for the college life has arrived, its energy flying and senses tingling. This is the commencement I have been desperately waiting for all these years.
The realization came alive. Inside a majestic auditorium, it finally hit me that I was at a university- where the true learning begins. The ideas that will shape my adult life are soon to sprout. The dreams are coming fast. The worries too. And my mind at last comprehended that I would be spending the next four years at this place; wandering in its halls, napping in its libraries, poring over papers, laughing in town, dining in the dark early morning. In a year I will be in the know, but currently my soul sits only in empty, yet colorful ignorance of what is out there. This ignorance is disconcerting, but wonderful. It is necessary and natural, but overwhelming and ominous. It is beautiful.
Do the others see what I see? Maybe no and maybe so. Every person here came with a bare idea in mind- to fulfill a purpose. Whether this purpose is superficial or authentic, known or unknown to them, it is there. And I stand amongst them all soaking in every aspect in, letting some chances slide by and others be magnified.
This is my new home. In a land I so far have only stepped on for a week. It is not just a physical home where my education and future career will form. This place just may become the home to my heartbreaks, sighs, tears and also many, many smiles. I will cheer for the Big Red, possibly represent it on a team. I will sludge through its sidewalks in snow, or sing in its rare days of sun. I will fix the test tubes and shift some conversations. I will be a part of its existence, hopefully its successes, and even its failures that lead to the changes in the world.
I will be at Cornell.
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- Far above Cayuga’s waters, with its waves of blue,
- Stands our noble Alma Mater, glorious to view.
- Lift the chorus, speed it onward, loud her praises tell;
- Hail to thee our Alma Mater! Hail, all hail, Cornell!
- Far above the busy humming of the bustling town,
- Reared against the arch of heaven, looks she proudly down.
- Lift the chorus, speed it onward, loud her praises tell;
- Hail to thee, our alma mater! Hail, all hail, Cornell!
beautiful…..