89 credits: Redux/Edit

[Edited to cut out things I've already posted and forgot, and to add some new]

As I type this, I've realized in the past few days how truly dependent I am on technology. I usually write my blog posts on a 13.3" MacBook, and can easily see all I've written. Tonight (unless you consider it morning), I'm tapping away on a touchscreen keyboard on my iPod Touch. After my Mac's inverter (what lights the backscreen) finally flickered out, I was admittedly none too pleased. I use my Mac for everything (well, almost everything): email, homework, outlines, essays, taking online quizzes, watching Lost (you know, the essentials).

Anyhow... This realization gave me a lot of time to reflect on some things, since I wasn't distracted by the lure of looking up that "one more thing" online (which, if you're anything like I am, turns into five, ten, twenty more things if I'm not careful). Anyway, I was doing a total overhaul of my room on Sunday. I moved furniture, cleaned, organized, did laundry, and got a lot done. It was really satisfying to get so much done in so little time. I finished everything in about an hour and a half, or thereabouts.

While I was cleaning, I came across the distribution sheet of classes needed to complete my major, in the recommended four year sequence. I set it aside, promising myself to look it over and fill it out when I was done cleaning. After hanging up my last shirt in my closet and putting the last towel on the pile, I picked up the sheet again.

There were classes I had taken, and, of course, those I have yet to take. Upon completing what I could on the sheet (I wrote in the grades I had received for those classes I've already taken), I made a startling revelation: I have attempted/completed 74 credits so far, and I'm in the first semester of my junior year. I'm currently taking 15 credits. This means that I will have 89 at the close of this semester. For those who aren't following, that means I am one single credit hour away from having as many credits as a senior in their first semester would have.

This, in all honesty, scares me in a way. I still need 31 credits to get to the 120 needed for my degree... But when I graduate, I'll have 131 or thereabouts.

Now, as I lay here typing this in my room as a CA, I can honestly and earnestly say that I'm glad that I had a crazy freshman year. It forced me to realize that that isn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

In those two years since my freshman year, I've grown as a person at a rate I didn't even know was possible. Admittedly, I've had wonderful professors and I've had horrible professors. I've lost friends and gained new ones. I didn't know what it was like to have my heart broken and healed. I learned to move on from my past. While I can't totally erase and start new again, there will always be those marks on the chalkboard of my life. They've made me stronger. I'm wearing my battle scars with pride, physically and emotionally.

Until this year, I didn't realize that a single group of friends could be so hilarious, supportive, wonderful, and simply amazing. I've laughed harder these past few months than I had in a really, really long time. I feel like I've known these friends for my entire life.

Now, I think I finally am getting to know who I really am as a person: physically, emotionally, etc. It's been a bumpy road of self-discovery... And it's not over yet.

My current career goal is to work in Human Relations or Organizational Development (as of right now).

Could things change? Absolutely.

And for the first time in a really long time, I'm okay with that - and I couldn't be happier.