With graduation quickly approaching, I can’t help but feel sentimental. A few years ago I walked onto Gannon’s campus as the typical scared freshman who had no idea what the next four years were going to become.
When I first came to Gannon, believe it or not, I was an athlete; I was a member of the cross country team. I had come to school with my older sister’s experience as my guide. She was also a runner and formed a family with her team. I had intended that would also be my path, but that was not the case.
After more than a year of attempting to recover from an injury with no success, it was obvious that athletics would not be where I would find my place.
I wandered around campus for a while, trying to find something that I was interested in that could replace this new void in my life.
I tried focusing all of my time on my schoolwork. This was the most boring idea I have ever had. All I did was go to class, and then go back to my apartment and do homework and study.
I actually studied. The worst part about this was that it didn’t even pay off. My grades actually got worse once I started trying.
So then I tried a few clubs out and landed on one that sadly died out because of low participation. But through that club I had made some very good friends.
We have become such good friends that I’ve even babysat one girl’s dogs. But lately we haven’t seen as much of each other because two of our group of four recently graduated and aren’t on campus very often.
This group had taken up so much of my time for so long that once we got split in half I was almost back at square one.
I had to find something to take up my time, but luckily I had already had a good portion of my time taken up by school, and the newspaper.
Working on The Knight’s editorial board pretty much guarantees that you have one less day to worry about finding something to do. In my case this was awesome because I only had six days to worry about instead of seven.
So I started filling in my time with me time. This was a great choice. I’ve finally been able to catch up on all of the shows that I never got to finish and I got to work out more.
I even set up time to spend with friends every once in a while. I was really enjoying myself. But then school decided to take over my life.
Last week I wrote about stress and that’s been what has taken over my me time. But this has all led me to being more than ready to graduate.
These past few weeks have been so stressful that I am 100 percent OK with being done with school forever.

SARAH BARTKOWIAK
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