He said, I think I’ll go to Boston...

Hey guys, just a quick blog to say I am officially on my way to Boston.

It’s both amazingly crazy and wickedly exciting at the same time, but it’s the excitement I’d like to focus on for the time being. No more ridiculously emotional/melodramatic posts like last night’s breakdown, I promise. :)

For the record, though, I did indeed cry a little saying goodbye to my mom and my sisters earlier this afternoon. It was bound to happen.

Random interjection: sticklers for Augustana will notice that I'm misquoting their song slightly, because technically the lyrics go she said and not he said...but cut me some slack, okay? ;)

Back to the point, I’m currently at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, and my dad and I should be boarding in half an hour or so. My dad’s kind of confused that I’m blogging this, but he says hi anyway. Sadly, the weather is terrible - torrential downpour, basically - so our flight’s been delayed. Hopefully the airline gods will smile on us and we’ll get in at a relatively decent hour. Either way, looks like moving-in is probably going to have to wait until tomorrow. Another day, another adventure, right?

To all my fellow ‘11s, see you soon in Boston and MIT!

Closing Time

Remember how I said saying goodbye to friends really sucks? Saying goodbye to family is much, much worse. Lots of tears in my house today. And I haven't even left yet.

This is probably my last entry from South Bend, by the way. Tomorrow, I get on a plane to Boston, and...and that's it.

This is the moment, then. Tomorrow - things are going to change, and keep on changing. And I'll change with them. For the better, I hope.

Tomorrow. Once, I thought it couldn't come fast enough. Now I'm afraid it's coming too soon. And the only thing I can do is meet it head-on, and maybe try to crack a smile through the tears. Yes, I said tears. I wish I could say I'm not going to cry tomorrow. But I know I will. Angst-ridden as that may sound.

I thought I would have more to say. But somehow, I think I've already said everything that really matters.

Mostly pointless

So for some reason Firefox is having a mental breakdown, and completely refuses to run Facebook properly. How could you do this to me, Firefox? Haven't I always been there for you? Wasn't installing you practically the first thing I did on my new computer? Wasn't it? WASN'T IT?

Meanwhile, in a spectacular piece of irony, IE7 displays Facebook perfectly.

Occasionally I hate my life. Or my computer. Or Firefox. Or all three.

Because the theme of this entry is pointless comments, here's a total OMG moment: High School Musical 2 premieres tonight! Will YOU be watching?

In other news, I've been saying goodbye to old friends and I won't even try to talk about that. Some things...you can't really talk about, not honestly anyway; not on this sort of blog. So instead you just laugh at them, or bury them in a private part of your mind, but they're still there. And it's going to take time for me to move on. But I realized last night that saying goodbye isn't the end.

It's really just another beginning.

Letting Go

Four days.

Four days left in South Bend. Four days before I head out to Boston.

For days before I leave everything behind and start it all over.

I've been waiting for this for so long, but it's always been one degree removed, a far-away dream of a distant world. It was always just "next year" to me - that was how my friends and I talked about it, what my relatives and my parents' friends said when they wished me luck. But suddenly "next year" has become "next week," and it still doesn't seem real to me. But the suitcases on my floor are proof.

I'm leaving.

Really, finally leaving.

It's not that I don't want to. It's just that I didn't realize until today how much I love South Bend. For the past eighteen years, I've always treated the city with a kind of casual disregard, an arrogant flippancy. Yes, it's small; yes, maybe we're kind of in the middle of nowhere out here. But it's still my city. The places I've claimed as my own, the memories I've made with my friends - the concerts at the Morris, Thursdays at BW3's. The Barnes and Noble on Grape I have always loved. The volleyball courts at Notre Dame. That one building Alan showed me downtown. The motorcycle shop on Lincoln Way. My friends' houses.

It's hard to let all that go.

There'll be other stores in Boston and Cambridge, I know. Other places to find, to claim, just like all the others have before me. Other friends - many, many friends. And I'm pretty sure that it won't be long before I stop really missing South Bend.

But I'll still remember. I'll never forget where I came from - and it's good to know that it'll always be here. Things are going to change. It wouldn't be right if they didn't. But I know that, no matter what happens here, whether I come back for a year or just a few days, South Bend will always be my home.

A lot can happen in four days.

I'm going to make the best of them.

All at Once

Precisely 15 minutes ago, I finished my last day of research at Notre Dame.

Ten weeks. Every Monday through Friday, nine to five. Four hundred hours.

It's been...amazing, really. I had no idea what to expect going into this thing, but all the same I ended up completely blown away. For better or for worse, I was taught the basics of what I needed to do - and then I was let loose. From playing with bone to actually getting down and dirty with the data, I...I think I surprised myself, really, with what I've done.

Everything's going so fast, now. I only have a little more than a week left in South Bend - just 9 days left with my family, my friends, with everything and everyone I've grown up with. Even walking around Notre Dame today was hard, because I knew today was the last day, and I don't know when I'll be back.

Deep down, I know that I'm doing the right thing by leaving. Getting out of my comfort zone, going somewhere I can make a new start for myself. A place I can just be myself, surrounded by people who are simultaneously like me and wonderfully different. But it's hard to remember that, sometimes, because everything seems like it's happening all at once, and there's no time to slow down, no time to really say goodbye to the people who matter, to all the friends you'll miss.

It's like I'm caught between two worlds right now, stuck somewhere between South Bend and Boston, Notre Dame and MIT, pre-frosh and froshling. It's not easy, and it keeps on changing. But I was listening to The Fray today, and even though I wasn't really paying attention, one line still caught in my mind. "Sometimes, the hardest thing and the right thing are the same." And that's true. This is what I want to be doing, what I've dreamed of for months. And now...now, it's nearly time to finally make that dream real.

One way or another, I'll make it through.

We all will.

Leaving South Bend, never easy

As I write this, one of my best friends is on a plane, heading to West Point for basic training.

It is, I know, something he has always wanted.

But that doesn't make it any easier for me, for his friends, for his family - for all of us he's leaving behind. It reminds me a little of that line in "Leaving New York," It's easier to leave than to be left behind.

That song's always had a lot of meaning for me, and I'm not even from New York. Now, though, it really hits home.

John is one of those guys who's everybody's friend. Smart, funny, good-looking, kind of happy-go-lucky, football player, honors student...just an all-around great guy. Yes, he had girl problems like all of us; yes, he could be insensitive; yes, sometimes he cut corners or he slacked off. He wasn't perfect, but he was...he was John.

And now he's just a new cadet. He gave us his address, so we can send letters to him while he's at Basic, and we can't even put his first name on them. They're taking his name, and I don't know what else, and I'm scared that the John I see in a few months, if I even do get to see him that soon, isn't going to be the John I knew.

I think we all feel this way, all of my friends. It's becoming increasingly clear that we only have precious little time left together. A few months ago, college was just a letter in the mail, a dream that we desperately wanted to come true. Now it's real, and we realize that the dream is bittersweet.

John's been a great friend to me these past few years, and I'd miss him terribly even if he weren't leaving so soon, even if he weren't going to West Point. But at the same time, John and his departure are also just one example of what we're all going to be going through very soon, as we get ready to leave South Bend for the new school and new city we've chosen for ourselves.

I'm excited, naturally. I know I made the right choice, I know that MIT is the right school for me. The academics and the facilities are everything I've ever dreamed of, the students and the faculty fit my own personality without me having to conform to their standards - and I am going to love living in Boston.

But in a way my excitement is also just a facade covering up all the fear and anxiety I have about actually leaving home, actually drinking from the firehose that is MIT. I joke about being buried by p-sets, but what if I really can't handle all the work? My parents keep telling me not to do too much and spread myself too thin (and I, in return, keep insisting that I know how to manage my time), but what if I really do end up taking on more than I can handle?

And I am afraid, just a little bit, of my fellow classmates - which is kind of ironic, because everybody I've met, at CPW or on Facebook or elsewhere, has been completely friendly and I'm really looking forward to meeting all of them in August. But they've all done such amazing things and all seem to know exactly what they'll be doing at MIT, and sometimes I feel very small compared to them. I worry about fitting in, about not being overlooked socially or academically, about whether or not my roommate will get along, about succeeding in my classes, about extra-curriculars, about getting a UROP. I even worry about whether or not I'll actually have enough time to watch the Notre Dame games every Saturday, like I've been planning to.

But...in spite of all that...I'm doing just fine. I've made my choice, and even if I am scared I'm not going to let that stop me from having the time of my life. It's going to be hard, but it's supposed to be. And that's the way I like it.

My future's mercurial, the past...I'm not going to forget it. But I won't let it hold me back.

So maybe I've made you smile, maybe I made you frown. But I'm not changing my mind, and I'm not turning around.

I'm going to MIT.

This one's for you, John.