Dear College, thanks for the memories

College – the highly coveted four years that most every middle/upper class kid experiences. Attending is not a possibility, but a requirement to make proud parents prouder and to prove the level of one’s education. Sure, school choice matters – Harvard and Yale, or the University of Florida and Florida State. But we all continue our education for the same reasons: the college years provide the perfect canvas for the transition to maturation – four years (or maybe more) away from home, an excuse to procrastinate a real-life job, a time for self-discovery, and perhaps, a place to acquire a more concentrated skill set.

People always refer to their college years as “the times of their lives.” They warn you to enjoy every moment, promising that the four years will fly by. They urge you to stay summers and get involved. They tell stories from their hay day, which must be missing the essential details that make the stories funny in the first place. They can’t help but reminisce. Is it because of the great educational experiences they encountered? No. It’s because of the friendships they created, the places they went, the bad choices they made, the independence they gained, the tailgates and football they watched.

Everyone seems to know, but no one really seems to care that college life is more about self-discovery than it is about higher education. Memories of sorority functions and weekend away trips to football games fill the spaces in our brains where statistics and comparative politics knowledge should be. Still, we leave our university, diploma in hand, only slightly smarter than we’ve ever been, but with more confidence, self-esteem and stories than we knew possible.

I sucked the life out of orange and blue. My time at UF can been categorized as anything but dull. Summer B, I took advantage of meeting new people, ordering pizza and pokey sticks for late night snacks and adding a second major (political science) after thoroughly enjoying my first international relations class. By the time fall semester arrived and rushing a sorority took priority over classes, I was well acquainted with the campus.

My journalism major made it acceptable for me to be curious about every hidden nook and cranny in Gainesville. I traveled to High Springs, Starke and Alachua looking for stories to write and people to meet. The only “A” in my entire collegiate career that I didn’t receive was, ironically, in Intro to Journalism (B+). I learned never to skip extra credit assignments, no matter how solid I thought my grade was.

Odd jobs defined my time not in class – a Texas Roadhouse hostess for two days before I quit (who likes to clean bathrooms?); a door girl to collect money on Thursdays at a downtown Gainesville club, where I’d watch bloody brawls take place; a beer tub girl at Gator City, where the lower my top meant the greater my tips; a tutor for Advanced Learning Centers, in which I tutored a first-grader twice a week in reading; a freelance food and restaurant critic for Examiner.com that allowed me to try each and every Gainesville restaurant my heart desires; and an ice-cream seller at the Gator football games in the alumni section, with weekly regulars. Attending games meant selling ice-cream, not watching.

I studied abroad – twice – with a greater emphasis on the “abroad” than on the “studying.” On my journey spring semester of junior year, I ended up on a fourth-floor “piso,” or apartment, in Barcelona, Spain, for four months. I lived with a host mother who spoke Spanish a-mile-a-minute – the most apropos breeding ground for misunderstandings. Dinners consisted of my broken chit-chat and offensive slurs. I would say accidentally that I was pregnant instead of embarrassed, or talk about my anus instead of my age. Despite my inevitable flaws, I practiced, and my trip became an on-the-go education. Spanish class took place in cabs and small boutiques. Home economics occurred mid-afternoon as I watched a woman scale fish in an open market, and my new Spanish friends taught linguistics – more aptly Profanity 101 – as we enjoyed tapas. By the time I shared my final meal with my Senora, Spain had become my home, and my educational experience became part of my life lexicon. I traveled to Paris, the south of France, Italy, Amsterdam and all around Spain on weekends, learning there’s more to life than school. I returned from gallivanting halfway around the world to realize that the love of my life was my best guy friend, and we would begin a relationship that makes others envious.

My second journey, 10 days in Icapuí, Brazil, with Pulitzer-Prize-winning photojournalist and professor John Kaplan for the coveted, invite-only Florida FlyIns class taught me the wonders of international journalism. I combined my love for travel and writing while producing a story on a Brazilian fisherwoman and getting class credit.

Internships, the mantra of UF faculty, became my goal. Us Weekly, Universal Republic Records, the Guardian Ad Litem program, Vertical Textiles, The Gainesville Sun, a stringer for The Independent Florida Alligator, and a freelancer for Tea Time magazine each became bullet points on my ever-growing resume.

The rest of my college experiences were a potpourri of this and that that I somehow found the time to accomplish/do. I was president of my sorority, a member of the prestigious Freshmen Leadership Council, a campus diplomat. I won an AT&T scholarship for three years. I was named the John Paul Jones, Jr. award winner for excellence in writing, as nominated and voted on by the journalism faculty and administration. I became an Anderson Scholar for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences because of my stellar GPA. I graduated Summa Cum Laude (highest honors) and paid $45 just to wear the three cords at graduation. One of my professors dubbed me "a human highlighter." I created my first two blogs: KP in the City and Fork First Spoon Later. I went on a road trip to South Carolina for a Gator game. I spring breaked in Coast Rica. I “dated” my TA.

Only once I’ve cleared my head of each life-changing experience that has already become my college story, can I remember the classes – classes like food politics, in which I wrote and published my first book, "The Taste of Culture," and MMC2100 (Writing for Mass Communication) with an instructor who, to this day, remains one of my most valued mentors. I can think back fondly on once-dreaded papers and projects that have made me expand my personal boundaries while helping me to discover myself.

With a tear in one eye and a wink in the other, I pop the college bubble that I’ve been living in and prepare to tackle real life – Teach For America in Baltimore - where waking up at a normal hour is socially acceptable, working anywhere other than a bar or a club is smiled upon and going out nearly every night of the week is impossible. I leave feeling scared, yet ready to face those challenges ahead. Nostalgia for years past sets in and I long to relive it all over again. I wish I could go back to college.

Home sweet home

Well it’s been a while. A long while. A long long long while. More than 10 months, to be exact. But I’m back. Back in Gainesville (which some fondly refer to as Gainesvegas, The Ville, Gville or other such nonsensical names). Whatever you prefer to call it, I call it home away from home – where all my friends live and play and parents are not allowed (only for move in and move out, of course).

Normally the start of every year is filled with happiness and “It’s so good to be backs,” but this year it’s different because we all know what atrocity is about to occur. This is the year we graduate. When purchasing Gator tickets will require Bull Gator status, hanging around the sorority house isn’t cool anymore and going out to bars and clubs until 2 a.m. simply won’t be acceptable.

To ease the pain just a tad, my girl friends and I moved in to the most adorable cottage you have ever seen. Ever. It’s a two-story, three bed/three bath abode with real wood floors, stainless-steal appliances and granite countertops. Not quite your typical beer-pong-playing, crazy-dirty, college-kid-type apartment. But it will have to suffice. It's is brand new and all.

Perhaps you’d like a tour, no? Downstairs is my roommate Steph’s bedroom, the kitchen with our center island that doubles as our table and the family room. Upstairs proudly houses my other roommate Rachel’s room and our makeshift workout area fully equipped with an elliptical machine (Now I have no excuse for not working out, huh?) But la crème de la crème is my bedroom down the hall from Rach’s.

One 16-foot Budget truck, two “moving men” (aka Andrew and my cousin, Stormy), and one cranky mother were what it took to furnish my living space. And getting this entire place set up was quite a feat. Somehow the guys lifted all my heavy pieces up the narrow stairs and then were subject to my mom’s and my finger pointing as to where everything should go. After a few sweaty hours, my room was looking pretty in gold, pink and blue. I decided to go simple and clean instead of overly crowded with childish pictures hung on every wall. A mere bed, dresser, end table, desk and television set fill my four walls and everything in between.

Unlike my straightforward room, my closet is a totally different story. My walk-in closet also consists of a makeup vanity, which I so craftily (and economically) put together. My purses hang from the wall and my pairs upon pairs of shoes practically devour the floor. Love it.

Know what I love more? For the first time ever in my life, I have my very own bathroom! Exciting, I know. I lined it with candles and flowers and girly bathroom pictures, just the way I like.

[Welcome home, KP, welcome home. Now if only your roommates were here….]

You see, Steph won’t be home until Sunday, and Rach doesn’t arrive until Friday. Bummer. Gainesville is oh so boring when not so many people are around. Plus, there’s no one to sneak out with to get late-night dessert.

Right about now, as I sit here craving chocolate, I am stuck resorting to eating apple-cinnamon-flavored mini rice cakes to do the trick (not like I’m gonna go to D’Lites by my lonesome). Oh well. Guess me and my comfy-cozy cottage will just have some catch up time.

Cages or wings - which do you prefer?

Just when you think you have it all planned, life throws a fast one.

It’s not just Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae that hit a downward spiral and went plummeting. I, too, seem to be going bankrupt despite the warning signs that I had telling me not to take 15 credits, start working on my senior thesis a year early, plan for law school, score a summer internship eight months in advance and finish out my term as president of my sorority. Though I have known all along that life and my aspirations would catch up with one another, I have finally nose-dived, and am secretly hoping that some greater power will step in to help me take control of my life.

But since God works nothing like the federal government (to my knowledge, at least), I decided it would be a good time for me to take control of myself and recalculate my priorities. Essentially, I am my own bailout plan. Unlike its federal counterpart, though, my plan was approved by me, myself and I, and it passed without any earmarks or pork barreling.

Between classes, getting settled back in Gainesville and re-familiarizing myself with slow-paced life, I seem to have pushed everything I once adored to the back burner: my friends, my free time, my reading for fun and my blog. School and the presidency became my top priorities, and everything else became secondary. Three cups of coffee became staples of my day, and my alarm goes of religiously at 8 a.m., even on the weekends, so I can get it all done. No one said it was easy to be the queen bee, the star student and the best friend, especially all at once. Silly me.

But if you know me, you know I like a challenge. I’m not into being cooped up in my bedroom hour upon hour doing work. So now, more than a month into my classes, I seem to have gotten a grip and figured out how to balance my hundreds of pages of reading a night with my 10-page-long papers and my smaller homework assignments. I color code my planner and make meticulous lists. It never ceases to amaze me how much pleasure I get from digging my pen deep into my Post-Its, etching out whichever project, reading assignment, paper or e-mail response I have completed. The result: a little more time for friends, a little more for fun and even a little more for blogging.

So, yes, it’s been a while. An awfully long while. And too long if you ask me. But I’m back. It’s time for me to start doing things for me because every bailout plan has some cushion to give its writers some perks.

As for cages or wings….maybe I just shoulda asked the birds.