the end of the beginning

This isn't so much a blog as it is a ... I don't know. A thank you note, or something like that.

It is the first day of my summer, and yet I find myself lingering at school-- the place I complained about, wanted to transfer out of or downright drop out of all too often during the school year. In the weeks leading up to this day, I've had several people ask me how my freshman year went. For lack of wanting to explain, I said it was okay. That's not exactly untrue. When you average everything out, it did end up being an okay experience. There were parts that I loved and parts that I hated. Some of what I hated didn't really even have to do with Rutgers. To borrow from Dickens, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times.

I'm not going to go into the parts I didn't like about Rutgers, because I think I've done enough complaining about that already in my conversations with people. But I do want to take some time out to write about the parts that made my decision on May 1 of last year worth it. It was not the one I wanted to make. But here goes... (For those of you who read for sarcasm and cynicism, I'm sorry to say there won't be much or any in this post.)

Without a doubt, I would like to say that the club tennis team has been the single best experience of my time here thus far. When my mom asks me to name one thing I actually like about Rutgers, tennis is the first thing that comes to mind. I can't exactly put my finger on why, but that was probably the one place I was always happy to go to, with most of the people I was always happy to see. For me, that latter part is big. My tragic flaw is that the more I learn about people, the less I tend to like them. Several trips and many practices later, though, I've found that I really enjoy time with the club tennis team. I realize I don't even know most of you all that well, but I wanted to say thanks for well... being awesome. You've made my Rutgers experience infinitely better than I expected it to be.

And then there are the pharm kids, plus the odd couple (you should know who you are). There isn't much to say, besides that I'm glad I met you all. It's been nice to be around a group of bright students that aren't totally absorbed in schoolwork. For the most part anyway ;)

There are too many regrets that I have about decisions I've made. Opportunities that I let go of, and chances I didn't take. Leaps of faith that I was too afraid to take. Do I count not going to USC as one of those regrets? No, I don't. I've made some mistakes over this past year. But coming to Rutgers was not one of them.