As The Mass Exodus Concludes...

My freshmen year is over.

As I sit in my completely bare room, my bag on my bed, my guitar resting on my wall, my roommate is packing things up. In less than three hours, Spruce 108 will no longer belong to Lucas and Sebastian; it will just be calmly waiting for the next pair of first years, anxiously awaiting the first days of L&T, to leave their mark.

It's surreal. It went by so fast. I still vividly remember the day I moved in, the first few days of class, the best parties, the rehearsals and performances, the work, the girl I sought after, and I've been here pretty much 100% of the time since the beginning of August.

Well, I just thought I'd use this space to express some feelings of gratitude to those aspects of my freshmen year that warrant it. Here goes.

1. Thank you Leon Botstein for letting me into this crazy place. I've found a home here amongst the hipsters, and, at this point anyway, I can't fathom being anywhere else.

2. Thank you to all my teachers from San Francisco (at Urban, ACT, and beyond) for preparing for this step in my life. God knows where I would be if I couldn't write an analytical essay or effectively participate in improv games.

3. Thank you to the teachers here for all the wisdom, guidance, and advice. Jonathan Rosenberg, you are a G! Zakiyyah Alexander, you will be missed! Mustafa Abu-Sway, you're too smart to be teaching us. Odile Chilton, you prepared us for France like no one could! Merci beaucoup!

4. Thank you Andrew Lippa, Jean Paul Sartre, Sophie Treadwell, and Manowar. Your words, music, and stories made up most of time here, and I was honored to be a part of bring them to life on the stage.

5. Thank you Shakespeer, for giving me access to pretty much anything electronic that I wanted. So much music and so many movies at my fingertips. What the hell am I going to do without it this summer?

6. And finally, thank you to all the friends I made, in no particular order: Ben Hopkins, Harry Beer, Anna Denise Millard, Emmett Shoemaker, Sam Mintzer, John Doelp, Emily Scott, Evan Harden, Lucas Opgenorth, Will Tilghman, Emily Moran, Megan Kerriagn, Kate Edery, Allie Cashel, Gabby Goldstein, Katia Koziara, Keaton Ana Josephine Morris-Stan, Sarabeth Doble, Zachary Taube, Mike Kauffman, Andrew Levy, Joshua Parkin Corner, Emma Troisi, Victoria Tricoche, Anar Parikh, Rui Yang, Konstantinos Rizos, Sarah Poor, Gabriella Ricketts, Jordan Bayer, Ben DiFabbio, Donald Long, Elyse Neubauer, Rachel Marks, Kaycee Filson, Mike Porter, Kerk Soursourian, Caleb Parsons, Jen Biener, Carley Gooley, Michael Sullivan, Garrett Reuscher, Owen Robert Duff, Ashe Buchanan, Brenden Beecher, Ben Wszlaek, Miriam Natis, Sam Goldie, Luke Gresser, Ella Snow, Nicole Maron, David Sater, Michael Joseph Ernst, Cassidy Turner, Amanda Munch, Zia Morter, Ben Bath, Chris Buonanno, Ricky Maxx Gavrich, Nastya Valentine, Nicole Rosato, Steven Reiman, Nellie Barber, Milo Cramer, Ezra San Milan, Lena M. Tan, Sebastian Sarimiento, Lily Ellender Parmenter, Emma Horowitz, Tori Rulle, Kyla Mathis Angress, Jackie MacLean, Claire Thompson, Jennifer Schwartz, Mollie Braen, Brian Buchman, Patrick Jeffrey... and a whole bunch of other people that I can't hope to name right now. I already feel the void that will go unfilled all summer knowing that I'm am somewhere where these people are not. It's gonna be difficult.

Well, step one of my college life in complete, Freshmen year. Now on to step two, not having too hard a sophomore slump. Bye Bard! Love ya to death! Cya in the fall!