Being a student advisor for orientation over the past few weeks has made me realize just how young 18-year olds really are. I know I'm only 21 and all, but there must be some sort of crazy developmental leap everyone (well, I shouldn't say everyone but most people) take when they begin college. Obviously, there's going to be some difference between being an 18-year old senior in high school and an 18 or 19-year old college freshman - seniors are at the top of the ladder, in terms of where they are in the school and compared to their peers, whereas freshmen are just thrown into this whole new life. I remember feeling much younger at 19 (as a freshman) than I did at 18. If high school seniors are kind of at the peak of their experience as far as high school goes, and I'm nearing the end of my college experience, shouldn't I have more in common with a high school senior, at least in some respects of maturity level, than I do with a college freshman? This doesn't really seem to be the case, which makes sense, for the most part - hell, I'm not even a teenager anymore, which is a really nice thought, now, isn't it? I'm not a teenager anymore! Anyway, I guess I just didn't realize there would be quite the gap between 20-year olds and 18-or-so-year olds.

The funny thing is that when I was that age, I thought that I would know what I wanted to do with my life by this age. Oh, I knew it was unreasonable for me to think that I would have it completely figured out, but I thought that by this point, something would have clicked, something would've happened that made me think, "I could do this for the rest of my life."... I didn't need to be completely sure of it but I definitely thought I'd have narrowed my options. It's just -- I'm interested in too many damn things, what am I supposed to do! And some of the kids I advise seem to know, with such certainty, that they want to be biochemists or journalists or onion graders, and I'm more than just a little bit jealous. How do they know? How are they so sure and how are they not torn, like me, between an immense range of potential callings? I know that they're likely to change their minds at some point during college, and if they don't, they'll probably change careers later on in life, but I was never that confident, that set on any one job. Unless of course you look back to when I was a little kiddle and I wanted to be an archaeologist for the longest time. But that changed too, eventually (obviously, otherwise what the hell am I doing majoring in Communications and Spanish?). It's just frustrating that when I'm nearing the end of my college education, I still have very little idea of where I want to go with my life. Everyone keeps telling me that it's okay, I don't need to know, really, I have time and I'm still young... and I tell myself these same things all the time and for the most part it works. But every now and then, and it seems to happen mostly in spring (probably in anticipation of next spring when I graduate), this concern I have that always lurks at the back of my mind works its way to the front, and then decides to crawl down my throat into my stomach, where it turns into quiet desperation, until it eventually just goes away because I realize that, hey, it's not the end of the world if I can't figure it out... and there's not really a deadline for making these sorts of decisions.

Sorry for the rambling, once again. How was everyone's Easter weekend? Mine was lovely.