Follow Catherine as she documents her first year at UChicago!
Warning: This will be corny, but the realization I came to was sincere, and therefore I feel that it merits some reflection.
It hits me at the weirdest times. I’m in college. I’m going to be here for 4 years. The people around me are going through the same things that I am, and I will probably know them for the rest of my life. This last point is what I’d like to concentrate on. I think it’s so interesting how close I’ve become with my group of friends here in such a short amount of time. I suppose this is to be expected when you are living in such close proximity to everyone; sharing meals, downtime, and stories from your days. Still, I’m struck by how much I like the people around me.
It’s normal to realize how close you’ve become with a certain set of people when someone foreign to the group suddenly becomes part of it, and you try to integrate them into what for you is the norm. For me, this happened last weekend when my mother came in from San Antonio for parent’s weekend. Although I’d talked to her on the phone quite frequently since I’d been in school and shared a few stories with her, it was a completely different dynamic to have her standing right in front of me, and seeing the way that I interact with these new friends. Luckily, her reaction to everyone was positive, or else we would have had an awkward few days.
On that note, Parent’s Weekend was really nice (not to mention we had a few more cloudless days) and the activities that were planned around it were both fun and relaxing. I think Parent’s Weekend was something nice to participate in once, but I can’t see myself begging my parents to come next year to participate in the same things all over again. Highlights of the weekend include the homecoming tailgate (where the 7 person Palmer house team had an undefeated streak in the tug of war until we didn’t hear our name called for the next round and were subsequently disqualified), and getting to spend time downtown and go shopping with my mother because I was starting to get a bit of a Hyde Park fever.
It was during Parent’s Weekend that I began to realize how much I liked my friends, and how much they were beginning to mean to me. Spending the weekend with limited contact from them felt strange to me, and I began to want to make up for what I saw as lost time. Although I’ve been told that everyone will grow to hate each other during winter quarter (for reasons that aren’t completely clear, but probably have something to do with the fact that we’ll be cooped up inside with only each other to talk to for 4ish months), I’m hoping that I don’t fall into this pattern and can somehow keep my spirits up and my friendships healthy through winter quarter.
I feel like this strong sense of happiness concerning the friendships I’ve made is not particularly unique. While I know only a small percentage of my class’s population, let alone that of the school, I feel as if everyone finds their niche here. I find myself explaining things about myself to my friends, giving tidbits of my past so that we can better understand each other. I am so glad that I’ve found people here to trust in such a short amount of time, and to build sincere friendships with. Best of all, I know that this is a feeling resonating around campus, and furthermore, that it makes all the work we’re doing much more bearable.
In other news, I’m beginning to sense the calm before the inevitable storm. There is this sort of lull between mid-terms and finals that give us a little bit of time to assess what we’ve been doing with our time. We’re more than half-way done with this quarter, and soon we’ll be a third of the way done with this year. If you don’t pick your nose up out of your Hum reading, this could all go by without you ever realizing it. I think it’s really necessary to take some time out every week and reflect on what you’ve done, what you’re learning, and the people you’re surrounding yourself with in order to reap all the benefits of your memory, since in the end that’s all we’re left with.