And in the end…there is love.

I read a friend’s blog tonight, in which she was reminiscing about college…and it made me nostalgic. College wasn’t perfect…I was over committed, chronically fatigued, and living in a constant soap opera. But man, it was fun! Looking back on those four years, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in a tiny college on the West Virginia border, I have extremely fond memories. Here are just a few.

-Baptist Student Union
Our college was very small, and we only had one “religous” organization…to try to divide 500 on-campus students into more than one would have been counterproductive. The BSU is where I made my first college friends. It’s where I learned cheesy worship songs. Where I went on my first international mission trip. I loved our Christmas parties, caroling at the nursing home, then coming back for a gift exchange and steaming cups of hot chocolate. For two years, I was BSU president, and had the privilege of working with Dr. Lyle, our campus minister. A brilliant man, but even more than that, absolutely hysterical, and someone whom I could call on for anything. Those friendships are deeply rooted, and have formed who I am today.

-Dorm Life
Ahhhh, sweet dorm life. There’s nothing like cramming two strangers into a room the size of a closet, multiplying the amount of school work they’re used to by a million, and throwing in a ton of new experiences, and watching what happens. My freshman year, I met Hollie, who would go on to be my roommate for my next three years. The adventures we had…well, let’s just say I’ve considered writing a book. Like the time we snuck into our suitemate’s room to see what that nasty smell was (for the record, it was a semester’s worth of garbage shoved into a closet). Or the time we watched The Shining and I ran across campus to get back to our dorm because I was sure that the twins were chasing me. And the time I jumped off of the top bunk and busted my tail by landing in a spot of lotion that Hollie dropped on the floor. And about a million others. Hollie made dorm life fun. And I made for a fabulous case study for Hollie’s abnormal psych class.

-Road trips
There is nothing like piling a dozen college students in a van and heading across the state. I think my favorite trip memory is driving back from a fall break trip to Connecticut (by the way, it was on this trip that I saw my first prostitute AND my first transvestite). On the way back, after driving a LOT of hours, we were entering a long tunnel that stretches through a mountain. We were all sleeping, when all of a sudden Dr. Lyle slammed on brakes. Bleary-eyed, we all looked around, trying to figure out why we stopped. “Don’t you see that wall there?” Dr. Lyle asked. The wall, it turned out, was fog, paired with Dr. Lyle’s poor sleep-deprived mind. A few minutes later, he also spotted some pink bunnies wearing bow ties on the side of the road. It’s a miracle we made it back.

-Classes
Yes, I’m a nerd. I had fun writing papers. Tests were a challenge. I even miss procrastinating, and rushing to class with a paper fresh off of the printer, sleep in my eyes. I miss being late to my 8 a.m. New Testament class so often that Dr. Lyle had the class turn and watch me run across campus, and promptly fall on a patch of ice. I miss being in the creepy newspaper office at 2 in the morning, trying to meet a deadline. I miss a backpack full of books, new notebooks, sitting hunched over a computer so long that my eyes started to cross. Most of all, I miss learning something new, filling my mind with knowledge I hadn’t known the day before.

I’m not even saying I would like to go back to college. I know there were some not-so-good memories too, that would come back in a flash if I stepped back on a college campus. But right now, the good memories have shoved aside the bad ones. And I’m enjoying remembering all the fun I had those four years at Bluefield.