I had a little time on my hands, so I decided to go through my old photos that I was able to salvage on my defunct hard drive and I came across this photo. I had a little fun with it on photoshop to edit it to show what my mindset is right now:
March has quickly come and gone and I'm now in April, theoretically the last month before finals. How quick was it that this semester has passed; not too long ago I was taking the tube to Bank to go to a "Seeing London's Architecture" class in London. I really do miss those days, as I had much less to worry. Everyday was Carpe Diem, a new adventure. But even if that was merely half a year ago (already? Amazing) I feel so much older, so much more overwhelmed. The nature of studying abroad gives you a fantastic opportunity to become young again, to have no worries and to escape from everything that you were tied up in and live for the moment.
Now that I'm back here things have arisen and have hit me hard like a brick wall. In a little over a month I will have finished my third year in NYU. High School feels like such a distant memory, and I feel a much different person having come out to the city and lived for three years. Some things have changed about myself, some things haven't. Looking at myself now I ask myself whether I would have expected myself to be where I am now when I was stepping out of my door moving into my freshman dorm for the first time. Have I grown as a person? Have I expanded my mental intellect not just in academics, but through experience and interacting with new things, people, and environments? Have I made my parents hopeful for the person that I will become?
People continuously told me that you need to enjoy your time in college, because it is truly the best four years of your life. I was apprehensive to believe them to start, but looking back on it now I can not agree more. College gives you the pallete with unlimited colors to paint your own picture on any medium. You are given the chance to live independently without having to worry about the extraneous expenses and costs that come with it. But as I slowly realise that my time in Eden is slowly drawing to an end, I have to look forward and see where the journey I have set leads me.
I am hearing back from American Express soon (hopefully, bearing no unfortunate fallacies I can not foresee) about my projects that I get to select for this coming summer. The more I dwell on it the more I realize that my summers are starting to evolve into the once blissful escapes of academia to the limited opportunity presented to me to shine. The difference between the two are startling. The summer after senior year of high school my biggest worry was wondering which sandwich deli to hit for lunch. Now its wondering if my performance earns me enough creditbility to be considered for full-time. The circumstances have changed, but I don't feel like the game has.
This leads back to the picture above. It was a picture that I took during the World Cup Finals in Berlin. France was playing against Italy and the game went into sudden death penalty kicks. Grosso is setting up the ball for the kick that eventually hands the trophy to the Azzurri. The kick that he took defined the person he was for the entire tournament, for his entire career. He could have been the David Trezeguet, who missed his kick when it hit the crossbar and gave Italy the smallest window required to win the match. Grosso scored the game winner against Germany to send his team to the finals, and here he was again required to make the spot kick. Relating to myself I feel like I am coming into crossroads into this kind of situation. If I am given the ball, what will I do with it? What actions will I partake that define me? Will I be the one that slots it in side left corner, or the one that lets his opportunity slip away? This summer I feel will be a huge defining point in my life, not just for the fact that this is the first job that I have found on my own, interviewed on my own (with some prepping from fellow friends and family), and received on my own. Not just for the fact that this is the first time I'll be working away from California, away from home. Not just for the fact that I will be eventually/hopefully making more money than I have in the last 19 years combined. But ultimately, the fact is that I've been given all the tools necessary to become truly independent, to become an adult, to be able to truly define myself outside the realm of my parents.
I've got only one more year of college left, what will I do with it? What can I say is the best thing I got out of college? Was academics the most important thing that I got out of everything? I don't know, and I'm at a point in my life where I really don't know what will happen next. I am anxious to work, to test out what its like working in "the real world" if there is one. I am hungry to learn what it requires to live independently. I want to know what it takes to be self-sufficient.
Am I ready? I have no idea. But all I know is that if I get the golden ball like Grosso did, I sure as hell hope I know what to do to make the best of my opportunity.
