sileo

Thoughts from moments: The end of the semester

I've been here for a semester now, and this coming week will be full of finals and stress, and then it will all be over.  A nice holiday break will commence, and then it will be time to return to school for one final run before the freedom of summer.

I'm looking forward to the break, to being liberated from school and able to spend three weeks meeting my own deadlines and studying my own passions, rather than focusing so much on those that are required by the university.  I'm looking forward to spending time with old friends and eating heartily and singing.  Oh, how I'm hoping to sing.

But I'm also a little disappointed that the end of the term is here already.  I was just beginning to be comfortable with the people around me, and so the thought of no longer having classes with these particular people is a little bit disappointing because I've just barely gotten to know them.  Perhaps they will be in some of my classes next semester as well, which would be very pleasant, but for now it's a step into the unknown, as far as goodbyes.

And on the whole, I've made a much smaller deal of the goodbyes and all than many people (especially the teachers and presidents of groups and such, who perhaps are obligated to do so), but I suppose the biggest loss here is that of opportunity.  I waited too long to get to know people, and now they're being moved away from me, and I from them, and perhaps I'll get a second chance, and perhaps I won't.  Perhaps I'll learn to be more forward with new people and get to know their names much earlier (I must admit, there are still a few people in even my more interactive classes whose names I don't know...)   Perhaps I'll make other people a larger priority in my life, even though I don't yet know them.  Perhaps I'll even initiate conversation with other people, for little apparent reason.

Perhaps I won't overdo it, though.

In any case, the coming semester is a new start, which is always nice, but it's also important to take what you learned from the first semester and continue to move forward.

And really that's the only thing that makes fresh starts worthwhile.  If you weren't able to carry new knowledge and experiences with you into your renaissances, then you would be doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over, and restarting would be fruitless and frustrating.

And the only thing that makes endings worthwhile is the opportunity to start anew...