Bon Voyage

The ARC bookstore was an exciting place to be today! Not only are more and more customers flocking through our doors, but today was the bon voyage party for the transfer students, a birthday party, and the last day for a good handful of my coworkers. We filled the office with colorful balloons and had the biggest potluck in bookstore history. The store was filled with our energy as we ate, laughed at old memories, assisted customers, spontaneously hugged each other, organized books, and reveled in our friendship.

Transferring is turning into a very bittersweet event. I'm incredibly excited to go to UC San Diego and I can't wait to be there, yet there's a part of my heart that is saddened daily. It's hard to say goodbye to dear friends who are also transferring out - almost daily I'm having to hug someone goodbye...not knowing when I'll see them again.

I'm going to miss my friends. After spending two years at ARC, I've developed a network of close friends; excitingly interesting people more like siblings than peers. We text at all hours of the day, joke together, communicate with our eyes, dance in the bookstore aisles, savor oreos together, turn 21 together, study together, experience life together....and

now we're all going our separate ways. I have friends leaving to UC Berkeley, UC Davis, University of Colorado, USC, Sac State, UC Santa Cruz, and Biola, to name a few campuses. It's going to be hard not having my friends a simple 5-minute drive away.

I'm going to miss my professors. I'm going to miss going to their dinner parties and listening to stories of grad school and dissertations. I'm going to miss crashing at their houses and talking about the randomest things for hours. I'm going to miss tromping around Sacramento at midnight working on photography projects and playing with lights. I'm going to miss their honesty and encouragement and hugs. One in particular I'm having a really hard time saying goodbye to....I'm subconsciously in denial.

It's an exciting, wonderful time in our lives and I know that more and more opportunities will open up for all of us. I'm just having a hard time saying goodbye. Our lives will never be the same again, we'll never be in this special place together again. We've spent a beautiful two years learning, struggling, growing, challenging each other, aspiring, applying, getting accepted into schools together and sharing in each other's outbursts of excitement, and loving each other. And now the saga continues and we go our separate ways. And in the whirlwind of excitement and packing and moving and new classes and new campuses and new faces...a little part of me can't help but look back with nostalgia.