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You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it. ~John Updike Clock in: 3:45am. The heater next to my bed is too hot. The open window is too cold. Yet these two will not compromise. They remain two extremes. There’s no way I’m going to sleep. So I got the news today. I officially have a job at Roundabout Theatre. Working in the development department specializing in individual giving, I’ll be soliciting money from rich people, spending a lot of time on the phone and in the filing cabinet. But I’ll also be a part of their special events: premiers, banquets, galas, etc. Starting the first steps towards a dream, I’m already fulfilling one of them: just living in the most amazing city on the planet. Now I’m on the hunt for a second job. I need something with really flexible hours because Roundabout will (obviously) be my first commitment. It also needs to pay decent money. I’ve found an apartment up in Washington Heights. It’s nice, secure and close to everything including the subway station. It’s fully furnished, right down to the plates, so I can just move in with a couple of suitcases and be set for the semester. Only one problem: I need to find a roommate. Knowing desperately few people in New York, this could be a problem, so I’m asking everyone I know if they know of a decent guy who needs a place to live. I also need to figure out how I’m going to get there. I can’t just drive; I have no place to keep my car, and I can’t afford to keep it long-term anywhere near Manhattan. I’m hoping I can figure something out with Charlie / Jonny for that New Year’s get-together we’ve been talking about. My job starts on January 3. So in less than a month, I’ll be out of college and thrown fully into the real world. Terrifying? Yeah. I leave school on December 21. Before then, I have to do two papers for Rhet Comm, a stone sculpture,1 ½ music videos and a couple of finals. I’ll get about ten days at home for Christmas, where I’ll have to tell my friends and family good-bye in a new way. In college, I could still call it home, but 2006 means I’m moving out on my own. In less than a month, I have to figure out how to grow up. The hardest part of all this isn’t being on my own, though. It isn’t being apart from my family, either. I’ve done that for three years. It’s leaving Grove City that gets to me. I think one of the reasons I fell in love with the Harry Potter series so hardcore is because I connect with the fact that Harry finds himself at home at Hogwarts. Grove City is my home. It’s how I identify myself. Not the classes, by the third year I ignored class as much as the filmmakers. It’s about the people I’ve met. People that have come in and out of my life that I still link to this place even if they aren’t here anymore. When I leave it’ll be like we’re that much further separated. Not to mention the people that’ll still be here next semester. Since sophomore year I tended to hang out with upper-classmen. I’ve always lived with a senior. I moved from one group of friends to another pretty whole-heartedly. I got to know new people pretty well while maintaining a love for those I already knew. With each graduation I thought I might get more detached, but instead I find myself more infused with the amazing environment that I’ve been in the past three years. Finally this year came around, and I felt that I’d seen so many people leave that it wouldn’t matter when I finally got out, but it does. Despite my excitement for this amazing opportunity in NYC and all the money I’m saving on tuition, I can’t help but feel on some level that I’m making a mistake. How could I take myself away from something I hold so dear? It was in these dorms that I got to know guys who had more to their lives than monster trucks and pro wrestling. It was in these classrooms where I met teachers who cared about how I did in class and what I was doing outside them. It was in our fine arts building that I realized that I was in love with theatre and made it such a focus in my life. I know, without a doubt, that God put me here because I didn’t belong anywhere else. But leaving it is something I have to do to survive, to grow. Time has slipped through my fingers. Suddenly I find myself doing things and thinking this is the last time. Whether it’s the techie dance, the last installment of GCCTVNews, my last day in the Admissions office, my last brunch, inductions, chapel, voice lesson, assignment, trip with friends… what about my last wave goodbye? conversation? hug? It’s all so overwhelming I can’t even appreciate the moments I have left. I know people will miss me, but I don’t think it can compare with how much I’ll miss all of them. “You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.” Too true, Mac. There’s no doubt that I’m losing the most important thing in my life. I just hope that my future justifies it.