The truth is, as much as I am in love with this place, I'm about ready to jump out of my skin to get on my flight. It's been two months since I've seen my best friend, two months since I've slept in my own bed, two months since I've seen my dog or drove my car or drank coffee on my porch. I've become very aware of time since I've come to college. I remember being incapable of going without speaking to my best friend for more than a few hours, or how a week in junior year felt like an eternity. At school, it's like the hours have a mind of their own.
But this return back to the homeland's got me reflecting, as it has the whole campus; this place is ripe with it. When we get back next week, there's two weeks left of the semester, and then we're turning around and running back home again. I'll be on yet another incoming flight to JFK, and when I'm back on GW soil I'll be in my second semester of college. How did that come so quickly?
I came here with a laundry list of aspirations for myself. And so far, I've fulfilled every single one of them. I wanted to do theatre; I was cast as a lead in a company I fell in love with. I wanted to be a tour guide; I'm now doing the GW spiel every week for prospectives. I wanted to write for the admissions blog; here I am rattling off my self-discoveries to you all. I wanted to have big plans; I have a new schedule I'm in love with, applying for theatre board, plans for my directorial debut, and a possible second-semester job and summer internship in mind.
The thing that's blown me out of the water about GW is how there's been no aspiration too big. All the little wants and too-scared-to-want's wriggled to the surface once I got here, and each got fulfilled. I can't stop gushing about my school, and whether that makes me a GW head or a real success story, I don't know, but what I do know is that all lines I wanted to cross I've leapt past.
Tonight, I went to dinner with my interviewer from a year ago that is one of the reasons I am here. My most memorable interview was for GW with a senior who wasn't afraid to curse, come out to me, or tell me his passion, and his gripes, regarding the university. He supported me when I confided in him my fears about my revealing college essay. He was at my April Visit Day and calmed my financial fears. In many ways, he is why I am here. Tonight, he treated me to dinner at Froggy Bottom Pub, where he asked about all my experiences, my plans, and my gripes about where I was at. After I bored him with the inner details of my GW life, swapping names and stories and complaints, he smiled at me over his sun-dried tomato pizza and chuckled,
"So, what's next?"
If I could give any phrase to GW, it would be that. What's next. We are on our own timeline here; our own stratosphere of counting. Maybe we're all a little type-A, but the campus is literally crawling with people who can't sit still. It's all about next semester, next summer, next internship, grad school. And don't get me wrong -- we're having our fun as we go. But this is the type of university that forces you to look at yourself and truly ask, who do I want to be next?
So, for now, I'll go back to NY in the new skin I've grown from being at school, and give them all the saga that is Gina Michele's college adventure. And soon enough, I'll have a new story to tell. And as much as I will be happy to be home, there is comfort in knowing I have somewhere to come back to, that'll make me into someone even better than I am.
I hope you all find the time to think to yourself about what's next. It could be the most important question that you're not asking.
See you around campus,
Gina Michele
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