Finals....

With the doom of finals looming, life seems to be a black pit of despair. Finals are death. Cramming all of your knowledge into one week where you are forced to get up at arbitrary and early times based on University standards. All of this makes life seem like it's a lost cause in the last two weeks of the semester. With this being said, I can't help but contemplate the ridiculous amounts of change that are occurring as my first semester of college comes to a close.

I moved to Iowa City to go to school on August 16. It is almost four months later, and the ways that my life has changed are endless. In four months, I've packed up all my possessions to go to a university of 30,000 people where I knew only a handful upon my arrival. I said goodbye to all of my close friends who are attending various colleges across the country. I am attending the number two party school in the nation, despite my straight edge and conservative up bringing that leaves me clueless about everything. I left my life of music and theatre to study something I love (art history), while knowing that my education will be infinite for abysmal amounts of money. In order to try to earn more money, I decided to take a chance and earn two additional degrees in fields I have no experience in (studio arts and museum studies). I currently live in a 12x12 room with my favorite two-year old schizophrenic roommate. That's an adventure and a change in and of itself. Basically, my life in Iowa City has little relation to my life in Naperville.

With all of this said, I feel like in the last four months my life has become so much different, that my head is still spinning. I've dedicated to spend my life in an art library (which I love). I have a completely different group of friends in Iowa, whom I love dearly. And in a short matter of months, I will pack up my life and move to Iowa City permanently. And after that? I'll pick up and move to New York.

Wow. Four months. Change hits you like a flying rabid squirrel that jumped off a cliff and lands directly on your face. And all I can think is, I could not possibly be happier with the changes in my life. Sure, finals make me want to cry and cuddle with burritos. But if all I have to do is suffer through one week of finals in order to continue on this path of change where I pursue what I love?

I'll take it.

Iowa City/New York City, here I come.