Year one: Complete. The following post is a reflection that I wrote during a finals week study break.
“Are we there yet?” one of my friends asks as we trudge deeper into the forest.
The answer was of course, no. But almost.
“Do you know where we’re going?”
And the answer was maybe. But wait – I don’t remember seeing that piece of sheet metal against that branch.
Sonja and Taylor, two of my most adventurous friends were playing the role of tour guides. They had discovered a really cool place for a picnic during one of their nature walks. Five of my friends — Erin, Valerie, Jack, Colleen, John — and I decided to follow them one Saturday afternoon before finals.
The woods behind Horsebarn Hill, collectively known as “UConn Forest” on Google, represented the unexplored on my UConn map. Before I had ventured out that day, I thought that I knew of all the places where I could run or walk around campus. This would be a new adventure.
We descended down a dirt path crisscrossed with tree roots. Rocks and branches littered the trail.
Forty minutes since we left the student union, we arrived at the picnic site, a little ‘beach’ at the bend of a local creek.
After eating our pre-packaged dinner purchased with the remainder our meal points, I decided to wade into the cool water. I removed my sandals, allowing them to float on the surface of the water just to watch the weak current try and steal them away. I picked them up seconds later downstream.
Sometime soon after I almost lost my sandals, one of my friends mentioned that you can never walk in the same river twice. Or as the philosopher Ephesus said, “A man will never walk in the same river twice because it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” I like to think of Ephesus’ river as my creek. Its magical flow represents the changes within me and my environment that allowed me to grow during freshman year.
The move from home to dorms provided a major change in how I ran my life. Living on campus meant the absence of parents, but greater responsibly and the opportunity to make more decisions. Many of those choices were made with the help of dormmates and classmates.
My friends made my new journey through my particular creek particularly unique. At the beginning of freshman year we were those students wandering into an unknown woods following each other, trying to figure out everything from what to do on weekends to which classes to register for to which dining hall provides the most edible food. Friends provided me with the reason to experience the unknown, like go to a basketball game before I had come to UConn I hadn’t seen the Huskies play – gasp – or to take a new trail for a study break in a place that I had never seen before.
As freshman year comes to a close, I find myself studying inside as the sun shines brightly through my window. I shuffle through my notes and flashcards. The fun of summer grins behind the stress of final exams. I smile and ask myself a simple question, “Are we there yet?”
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I would also like to recognize my friends of Buckley Four South who have taught me not to take life so seriously. I will always remember the castles made of of boxes in the hallway, the fake dead bird that I found in my room that I thought was real and the epic April Fools’ Day “room rearrangement” that included a bed stuffed with 1 ½ recycling bins of crumpled back issues of The Daily Campus. And how could I forget the 1 a.m. basketball and hockey games? Thanks guys and see you next year.
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To all new Huskies: congrats and feel free to let me know if you have any questions about the freshman year experience.
