On Saturday night, I made the bold decision to sign up for the 99 Days Club. Initially, I was not entirely sure why I did it. I might as well have gone up to the bartender and written a check for a few hundred dollars and it would have been the equivalent.
Then I went to Tombs that night and picked up the free t-shirt; things were looking up. The next night, I went and had dinner there with a friend. Might as well get to knock another day off the 99. Of course, he conveniently had no credit cards or cash, or even a debit card to take a stroll over to the ATM and get cash.
I paid for both of us. I’ll probably be giving them some money every night until I get fed up of the process and quit a week or two in. But (cue the sappiness) it hit me that I may see it all the way through, and not because I need my daily fixing of Coors Light.
It’s the people, the seniors that I’ve grown up with over the past four years. For this semester, I want to be with them, around them, and do everything with them. More so, it’s the relationships I have built this year alone, while realizing there’s a finite time to hone and nurture them in our small college setting.
While juggling two internships and classes, I find myself missing out on that aspect of my last semester at Georgetown from time to time. Those rare times when I can’t make it, I find myself irritated. It is a little bit overdramatic but it’s reality.
The most comforting part is knowing I’m not alone. I overheard my roommate on Skype with his parents a couple of weeks ago going, “I don’t want to miss out on anything this semester. If it means handing in a paper late, getting a full letter grade lower, whatever.” I could feel his parents cringe from all the way across the country, but it honestly brought a smile to my face.
In an ideal world, I would be spending every waking second with these people I’ve grown to love. Realistically, I know that our paths may never cross again–be it friends from India, Nepal, Puerto Rico, it’s simply a harsh conclusion.
But in another exacting certainty, we seniors cannot really shake the dichotomy between the raucous fun of a last semester of college and the impending doom of the real world.
I have jobs on my mind. A lucky few have something locked up, but for the majority of us, it’s a waiting game on graduate school or some employer telling us to come on board. Once that’s settled, we can kick back and relax.
I’ve had trouble finding that mix, to be certain. The academic side of things is not looking too swell for me, whether it’s just forgetting about things entirely or just not caring. Then, I had to miss a weekend of debauchery in New Orleans because of work commitments and job applications.
We can’t win them all. I have learned so much from trying new things this year and expanding beyond my own personal Georgetown bubble. I’ve gotten joy out of trying new things on this campus, finding out what it has to offer. In the process, I’ve built new relationships that I could have never envisioned while living in my tight Darnall bubble four years ago.
That can happen in a variety of ways. My most rewarding experience this year has been showing people aspects of Georgetown I love – basketball at the forefront– and showing them what they’ve been missing out on for three years. But it doesn’t have to be basketball, or Tombs, or any one specific thing.
It’s the community as a whole. People here care about this place. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the number of seniors involved with GUSA elections for a time period when they’ll be long gone (myself included). To be frank, Adam Ramadan is family, and I would be voting for him even if his platform were awful (it’s far from it, by the way). For us seniors, it’s a matter of determining whose hands we want to leave our Georgetown in when we’re gone.
For now, the countdown is on. As of this Saturday, I had about 99 days left of college. It’s a startling thought, especially as that number dwindles down. But whether you dread life after college or not, it’s not all that important. For now, I’ll worry about that as it comes up. I’m too busy embracing the present.
