Reflections on a Month

So, we have all officially been attending the university affectionately known as Transy for a full month now. The weather has gone from the sweltering 90's to the brisk 50's, classes have transitioned from reading syllabi to exams and formal papers, and we lonely freshman have gone from awkwardly wandering around a campus of strangers to being able to greet at least 10 people on the way to every class. So what's happened? What do I remember? What sticks out to me?

The people stick out to me. My new freshmen friends Justin, Tony, Christian, Nick, Chris, Kayarash, Daniel, etc, etc, are some of the coolest guys I've had the pleasure to get to know in my 18 years of existence. I actually just went this evening to the airport to pick one of them up, a guy I can scarcely believe I only met a month ago. Comradery is just so much easier to build up with a group of guys that I'm with and around on a day to day basis. This is also true of the upperclassmen. It means something different than my high school friends, to have guys that I not only go to school with, but eat with, hang out with, go off campus with, and so much more. Needless to say, my facebook friend list has grown exponentially in the past 30 days!

Random ventures stick out to me. Whether it's to Tolly Ho (A nearby restaurant at UK) at 2:00 in the morning, to the Kentucky River to go diving and swimming, or UK's Christian Student Fellowship on Friday night at midnight for free pancakes, I find that I'm regularly exposed to so many more opportunities now that I'm not living at home. I'll make a confession here and admit that I like video games; indeed, one could call me a gamer. At least, one could before. I literally have only played a video game twice while I've been at Transy, once of which was in a LAN party setting with a fraternity and hardly even counts. That's not to say that I've stopped liking video games, I've just had so many better options that I can't seem to find time for it. To be certain studying takes up a lot of time, but shenanigans with the aforementioned amazing people make up for it in a way that keeps me not only sane, but in many ways truly content, if at times exhausted.

Quiditch sticks out to me. I've already made a post about this wonderful eccentric little sport, so I won't elaborate too much, but I must say that I love it. This Wednesday I try out for the traveling team, wish me luck!

Classes stick out to me. You probably don't believe me; but they really do. I have actually learned things. I've actually done things. My classes and my out of class work in them actually feel constructive! Hopefully this is an attractive thing about Transylvania, I know that in my position, this was something specific I was looking for in a college. To throw some specifics out there, I can now integrate by parts, trig substitution, and partial fractions because of Calculus 2, I can manipulate vectors in more ways than one would ever want to because of Physics, and I've written two essays defending justice and analyzing the democratization of intimacy in my Philosophy and Fundamentals of Liberal Arts classes respectively. Objectively, while this sounds kind of lame, I'm glad that if I'm going to go through the ordeal that is college, I can at least be proud of what I learn and proud of what I do. I'm glad that I respect this institution as a way to learn, to do, and to think, as well as a place to live.

Greek Life sticks out to me. It's a fact of life here at Transy that it pervades campus in a way that adds flare and spice to the routine of things. Whether or not it is a good thing is a subject for an editorial, or at least a different post, but it is certainly something I can appreciate about the character of campus. Whether it's a candlelight, a party, a philanthropy, or the 5k I'm running for one of the sororities next Saturday, the Greek system has certainly reared it's face powerfully in my first month here.

So these are all just a few things; to fully delineate my beginnings here would keep me an additional three hours writing about a bunch of details that are probably insignificant anyway. But hopefully, these observations and anecdotes show what sticks out to me most, college, and what it means to be there.