My roommate and I have a graduation countdown. It’s taped to our door and every night before going to bed we “X” off the day with a thick, red Sharpie.
Cheesy. I know. And annoying. At least that’s what friends have told us. They don’t understand how anyone could want to leave the Hilltop. Much less, have a countdown looking forward to the day.
But for me, the countdown has never been about getting out of here. It’s a countdown to Commencement, sure. But more than that, it’s a countdown to the beginning of something unknown. And, frankly, I find that very exciting.
Move-in day 2000 would have found a very different me – a hesitant, uneasy and petrified mess of sweaty nerves.
I sat nervously in the rental car as Dad and I crept across the Key Bridge. The AC was blasting warm air and the radio D.J. had just told us we were looking forward to the hottest day of the summer. Grrrrrrrreat.
“Will we get there in time? Will my roommate be there already? WHY aren’t we moving?!” My mind was a tossed salad of anxieties.
This was before the university had extended move-in to two days so after a three-hour crawl along Canal Road, we pulled up to the impending “Hoya Saxa” sign – two hours later than planned.
As we entered the parking lot, I saw a few students jumping from car to car in the killer heat. They were handing out THE HOYA – Georgetown’s newspaper of record – and I inched open the window just enough to grab the paper without letting the hot air in. Much classier than my high school paper, I thought. I’d written senior year but the journalism bug had never bit me. I skimmed THE HOYA’s headlines and tossed it on the back seat.
My dad told me I should take a closer look at it. Maybe I’d be interested in joining, he suggested. But I’d had enough of newspapers after high school, I assured him. After all, writing wouldn’t fit in with my plan to join the GU Dance Company or with my Spanish major, or with my plans to study in adrid junior year. I had it all figured out. Or at least I thought I did.
Three years later, I’m writing a reflection on my time at Georgetown – the majority of which was spent in the stuffy confines of Leavey 421.
Little did I know that I’d be rejected from the Dance Company or that a month later I’d be lured to THE HOYA table by a cute boy at SAC Fair.
In half a year, I’d go from knowing nothing about newspapers to running an entire news section.
I would also drop my Spanish major after realizing that I hated studying literature, much less the literature of a foreign language.
Sophomore year I’d take the leap from a major in Spanish to Middle Eastern History, rekindling my interest in the culture and language of my family.
Forget Madrid. Junior year found me studying in exotic Turkey while my friends were in more traditional places like France and Italy.
The Iraq War prohibited us from traveling (i.e., no Spring Break), but the forced proximity forged even closer friendships. Romance even bloomed in the most unexpected of places.
I never would have believed that impending Georgetown graduation would find me here.
A burnt-out ex-HOYA editor. A Middle Eastern History major. Heading back to California in a month.
If Georgetown has taught me anything it is that it’s OK not to have your life planned in cost-benefit analyses and charted in pie graphs.
In 20 days I’ll be moving back to the wild wild West. This time to Los Angeles – a far cry from the granola-chomping North where I was raised, and even farther away from where I started four years ago. So. Cal is a place that’s full of the superficiality and glitz that I vowed I’d never be a part of, but that’s where I got an internship, so that’s where I’ll be. For the next two months at least.
After my summer stint runs its course I have no idea where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing.
Frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Arianne Aryanpur is a senior in the College. She is a former Senior News Editor, Features Editor and Contributing Editor for THE HOYA.
