i got this from katie wynns about the first year of college...really makes me think...and not want to go to college...

A year has passed and now we stand on the brink of returning to a world where we are surrounded by the paradox of everything, and yet nothing being the same. In one month we will relunctantly give our hugs and, fighting the tears, say goodbye to people who were once just names on a sheet of paper to return to the people that we hugged and fought tears to say goodbye to before we ever left. We will leave our best friends to return to our best friends.

We will go back to the places we came from and go back to the same things we did last summer and every sumer before that. We will come into town on that same familiar road, and even though it has been months, it will seem like only yesterday.

As you walk into your old bedroom, every emtoion will pass through you as you reflect on the way your life has changed and the person you have become. You suddenly realize that the things that were most important to you a eyar ago don't seem to matter so much anymore, and the things you hold highest now, no one at home will completely understand. The memories and the stories from school won't mean anything to anyone at home and yet you resent them for that, that they can't share that happiness with you.

Who will you call first? What will you do your frirst weekend home with your friends? How long before you actually start missing people barging in without calling or knocking? Who will get pizza at 3AM with you? How long until you adjust to sleeping alone in a room again?

Then you start to realize how much things have changed, and you realize the hardest part of university is balancing the two completely different worlds you now live in, trying desperately to hold onto everything all the while trying to figure out what you have to leave behind.

In the matter of one day's traveling time, we will leave our world of living next door to our best friends, walking across campus to eat, instant messaging, 8AM classes, and the perpetual procrastination to a world that will seem foreign to us despite the fact that we lived in it for 18 years.

But it is different now. We now know the meaning of true friendship. We know who we have kept in touch with over the past year and who we hold dearest to our hearts. We've left our high school world to deal with the real world. We've had our hearts broken, we've fallen in love, we've helped our best friends overcome depression, stress, and death, and we've stayed up all night just to talk to a friend in need. There have been tims when we've felt so helpliess being hours away from home when we know our families needed us, and there are times we know we have made a difference.

One month from now we will leave. One month from now we will take down our pictures and pack up our clothes. No more going next door to do nothing for hours on end. We will leave our friends whose random emails and phone calls will bring us to laughter and tears this summer. We will take our memories and dreams, and put them away for now, saving them for our return to this world.

One month from now we will arrive. We will unpack our bags and have dinner with our families. We will drive over to our best friend's house and do nothing for hours on end. We will return to the same friends whose random emails and phone calls have brough us to laughter and tears over the year. We will unpack old dreams and memories that have been put away for the past year.

In one month we will dig deep inside to find the strenght and conviction to adjust to change and still keep each other close. And somehow, in some way, we will find our place between these two completely different worlds...

A farmer had some puppies he needed to sell. He painted a sign advertising the 20 pups and set about nailing it to a post on the edge of his yard. As he was driving the last nail into the post, he felt a tug on his overalls. He looked down into the eyes of a little boy. "Mister," he said, "I want to buy one of your puppies."

"Well," said the farmer, as he rubbed the sweat of the back of his neck, "these puppies come from fine parents and cost a good deal of money."

The boy dropped his head for a moment. Then reaching deep into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of change and held it up to the farmer. "I've got thirty-nine cents. Is that enough to take a look?"

"Sure," said the farmer. And with that he let out a whistle "Here, Dolly!" he called. Out from the doghouse and down the ramp ran Dolly followed by four little balls of fur.

The little boy pressed his face against the chain link fence. His eyes danced with delight. As the dogs made their way to the fence, the little boy noticed something else stirring inside the doghouse. Slowly another little ball appeared, this one noticeably smaller. Down the ramp it slid. Then in a somewhat awkward manner, the little pup began hobbling toward the others, doing its best to catch up....

"I want that one," the little boy said, pointing to the runt.

The farmer knelt down at the boy's side and said, "Son, you don't want that puppy. He will never be able to run and play with you like these other dogs would."

With that the little boy stepped back from the fence, reached down, and began rolling up one leg of his trousers. In doing so he revealed a steel brace running down both sides of his leg attaching itself to a specially made shoe. Looking back up at the farmer, he said, "You see sir, I don't run too well myself, and he will need someone who understands."

The world is full of people who need someone who understands.

Quote of the day:
"you know the world's gone mad when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the USA of arrogance and the Germans don't want to go to war!"

*There is no better time than right now to be happy. Happiness is a journey, not a destination. So work like you don't need money, love like you've never been hurt, and, dance like no one's watching

*Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end.
*When it HURTS to look back, and you're SCARED to look ahead, you can look beside you and your BEST FRIEND will be there.
*LIFE'S SHORT. If you don't look around once in a while you might miss it
*friends dont stab you in the back, they stab you in the front.
*A friend is someone who knows the song of your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words!!