Limerence was a harsh mistress.
2The philosopher character Pangloss, an undying optimist, continually asserts this, that "All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds."
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I still planned on telling you, you know, since I was riding on being the only person going to Penn from our year. But my luck never did run smooth, did it?
You don’t really remember this, you say, but I do. It came time to decide on where to go to college, and you wanted my help.
Man, did I love helping you.
In hindsight, this was probably the first time that
I thought with you in mind. I’d always done things for you, but really they were for me. As hard as it was, I forced myself to be as objective as possible, with your best interests in mind, not
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It was still an active effort, though, stopping myself from going head over heels again, even after you broke up with your high school boyfriend that October. Of course, I reasoned with myself again, putting practicality over desire. And believe me, it was quite the damn
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challenge. It didn’t help that you’d somehow become even more beautiful on both the outside and the inside.
Excuses. Excuses.
The thought was unavoidable, washing up on the shores of my mind whenever anyone asked me why I hadn’t gone for it yet. Whenever we spent time together.
Whenever I thought of you at all. It began to live in my mind and have a mind of its own.
You went abroad for the first time that summer.
Three months in Spain. Just my luck. I missed you, for the first time as a friend.
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Sophomore year came quickly, and I’d come to terms with my years-long depression by that fall. Freshman year was the first of many trainwrecks at Penn. Things at home became complicated, and I juggled home, classes, and my joke of a social life quietly. Being a reflective person had helped me for the longest time (as it is now, writing this), but it was my undoing. I had become a mirror trying to see my own reflection, so much in awe of the infinite that I felt infinitesimal. Things before college had always been a game—things to win, things to lose, nothing truly beyond the surface.
But things were different now, as Drake said that year: We go 0 to 100...real quick. And hell, we were pushing 110.
“Going to college was just an excuse to go find me a husband but don’t tell anyone,” Marianna said laughing fixing up her earpiece. Leaving her mom at the train station sobbing, she went off to Tabor College in Kansas. When she entered college all of her emotions hit her at once she felt nervous but, she also felt excited to start a new chapter in her life. Entering college was one of those moments when you have the spotlight on you and you feel everyone is judging you .Luckily she had one of the closest friends you can possibly have, a sister. That’s when her and her sister’s journey began.
Galileo Galilei, an Italian polymath, once said, “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” After graduating college, many students feel anxious about the new chapter of their lives they’re about to begin. Students are bound by a curriculum since primary school, guidelines they conform to all their lives in order to walk across a stage with a degree in hand. However, these individuals are seldom able to explore the passions inside of them that shape their aspirations throughout their time in the education system. Instead, they reflect on their college years of staying up all night to write final papers. Finals papers students have revised and edited a multitude of times in order to produce a paper that adheres to a rubric and, once again, conforming to another set of guidelines. In Donovan Livingston’s Harvard Graduate School of Education Commencement Speech, “Lift Off”, Livingston uses rhetorical devices such as alliteration, allusion, and metaphor to reinforce his message that students should not be limited by the confines of the education system, but that the education system should be supporting and guiding students towards reaching their full potential by the time they step out into the real world.
We did everything and anything, never taking a break from an adventure. It was all new to me, yet felt so familiar, it was home. Mornings were spent exploring the unknown campus and nights were spent at parties meeting new people I would come to call my bestfriends. We enjoyed the cards college dealt us and it’s “work hard play hard” mentality. Everything was on the table, it was just a matter of how you roll the die. I have never experienced a week quite like it, the summer air still rolls through my senses as the anthem, Closer, whispers in my ear. By the time I got home I was covered in the memories of the scorching frat house basement and mutual friends I came to know. Everything was
The first step is encouraging the client’s well-being through assessing the client’s strengths. A trust in human potential is secured to the idea that people have unveiled resources- physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually-that can be mobilize in times of need. This is where professional helping comes into play-in tapping into the possibilities, into what can be, not what is. (p.51).
An undecided future, the string of switching majors, the unsureness as a whole. All this was flooding her mind at once. She was unsure of what she saw herself becoming in this world of open doors and diverse opportunities. Six years spent finding herself and what she strived for. She sat reminiscing of the years gone by as she collected the small slip of paper that was her one true piece to prove her feats.
Leah was saddened that her college life would soon be over, but she couldn’t wait to close this chapter in her life.
It’s a well known fact that college is one of the most memorable experiences in life, and one of the most anticipated. I had interviewed David Tanaka about his college adventure. He’s witty, energetic young man working as a sixth grade social studies teacher at Kalama Intermediate. He was my sixth grade English teacher, the best one I’ve ever had. We were really close in my first year of middle school, mostly because I didn’t really have friends at the time so I always hung out in his classroom. I got dropped off at Kalama after school a few days ago and walked inside his classroom, pausing when I saw a bunch of teachers inside, talking. Some of the them had had me as a student, so it was a nice reunion. Once they filed out of the classroom, I interviewed Mr. Tanaka, who was a little preoccupied with eating the Lilikoi muffin I brought for him.
Sophomore year turned out to be the worst year that I’ve experienced in all my 16 years and 3 months of living. Remember when I said that the advice given to me by one of my teachers was engraved to the deepest part of my brain? That means that I didn’t remember that until a couple of months ago. But, it was already too late. I was already knee-deep in the mess I created.
It was 1644, the Ming Dynasty was at its end, and the Manchu was taking over the southern part of China. This take over lasted for nearly 300 years, ending in 1911. In the late sixteenth century an able leader unified the Manchurian tribes and proclaimed a new dynasty (538). As the Ming was ending and the Manchus force was taking over they proclaimed themselves as conservatives keeping the array of Confucians. The Chinese felt that the running of the Manchus was far better than the leaders of the Chinese rebels. With the help of the Mings the southern part of China was taken over by 1659, in which at that time there beliefs and commitment were turned towards the thinking of the Manchu. Although the Manchus was an influential group and only
You walk through the halls of your junior high school one last time. Every memoire seems as if it’s shooting at you all at once. First boyfriend, great teachers most of all though great friendships. We are starting our life if we know it or not. Everything will change. This summer I’m determined to get my glow up. Having so many friends you see how they’ve changed and yet here I am, still the same me I was my first year here. Nothing's changed except maybe my face blew up. Fun right, haha yeah it’s great.
Who knew the blankest day of my life would induce the most significant changes of my adolescent life? Definitely not I when I took that sip that would indirectly spill all of my disobedient affairs and fresh promiscuous experiences I obtained within that summer. The summer before freshman year was my summer of experimental escapades and selfish bliss. Being adopted by my austere and unsympathetic aunt April and being a canny and inquisitive, fourteen year old, teenage girl cause conflict for our living situation, lifestyles, and relationships. Therefore, the move wasn’t abrupt, but one specific decision expedited a revolution in my existence.
College and life after will become increasingly harder as time goes on, facing many more challenges and life-changing events. Failing is inevitable in the future. Just like the time when Eddie failed his teller test several times, I won’t let test failures hold me down, and instead will learn from them and keep trying. Firings from his job, deaths in his family, and any other circumstance didn’t define him, and instead, he kept going on. During college and throughout my life, I’ll continue what I’ve done for many years; make friends. I’ve always enjoyed meeting people and forming new relationships, and like Mr. Rivera spoke about many times, one day, one of those people could lead me to an opportunity that I couldn’t reach on my own. I won’t hesitate to try and talk to others either, because at any point, I could get an opportunity, just as he did with the barber shop
The weekend was going to create a new, more ambitious, start in my life. I didn’t want to hide anymore, but I didn't want to be someone who was an attention seeker. Learning how to let my voice be heard without judgment was one of the greatest feelings. Even though I became more outgoing, spontaneous, and learned how to live life to the fullest, I realized I was still lacking one thing. Strength. Putting on a fake smile is effortless, but once the door is closed, you start to see true colors; and that’s exactly what had happened to me towards the middle of my junior year. I stayed strong throughout school and around my peers, but once I made it home, I would start questioning every aspect, every action of life. It seemed like if something went wrong, it happened all at once, leaving me with this huge mess called life. This world we live in is a beautiful insanity, and learning how to live it to the fullest is something that we will never figure out; you will always have the ‘gray’
“It was a few years into my post college career. I had all a man could ask for in life, a beautiful wife, a three-year-old daughter with another on the way, and, most importantly, a stable job working as a mechanical engineer at Intel. Life was simple. The job paid enough for the family, the house, and a little extra to spend on a small vacation each year and opportunities to eat out once a week. It was a quaint life I had settled into, but it was routine. While time marched forever on and on, I began
Every day as I walk towards all of my classes and feel the thousands of people around me, I remind myself that it wasn’t always like this. Who would have known that a boy from a small pueblo in the tropical island of Puerto Rico would end up going to the largest university in the state of Tennessee. As a young man, never in a million years would I have imagined my life to be the way it is now and it began ten years ago on the day that my family and I landed in the Nashville airport. Excitement filled all of our hearts for this new beginning, and the first memory I have was when we first stepped out of the airport that December afternoon. There was something different about the way the air and the sun felt on my skin. Almost as if the air had