I moved into my temporary residence in Waterloo today. Its hard not to feel like a transient when you’re uprooted every four months. There are a few days of discomfort while you shed your old life, your previous persona and slip into the new one. I have another three years of this to go. It’s a long time to look forward to. I can’t remember what I felt like when I was a frosh. Did the wait seem so interminable then, the progress so slow? Or was I simply consumed with the realization that I was actually in the University of Waterloo, the goal of my high school years?
I don’t know. I don’t even care. Or maybe I do – its something I myself no longer consider a given. I didn’t expect it to be like this. Not like this. The long days, the longer nights, the panic as assignment after assignment rolls in. The sessions before the midterms. The conscious thought that my future rests in the balance here. The realization that every minute I spend studying is a minute I can’t workout or try to improve my coding skills. I start to begrudge the time I spend on schoolwork, try to take shortcuts – lose completely the wonder I had when I looked at something new, something beautiful. As I write this, the flowing notes of Rachel’s Theme echoing unbidden inside my head, I am conscious of a small desire. The desire to avoid it this term. To change. To be better than I am. I do not know if I can, but I will try.