I sit here today, looking back at who I've been and what I've done. From this perspective, I almost seem a different person now than I was a year ago. I suppose in a lot of ways I am. In the past year, I have gone much further down the road of self discovery than I ever thought possible. Looking ahead, I realize how much further I have to go. It's been an interesting journey. In a lot of ways, I can't believe the person I was a year ago was me. I was really quite asinine back then. My mind was rather closed, and now it has opened in a thousand different and exciting ways. My methods of thinking were so terribly limited, but now I realize that they are or at least have the possibility to be endless. I wonder, sitting here now, if in a year's span I will look back at myself now and think the person sitting here today is a stupid one. I wonder if this coming year will bring as many changes as the last. If so, it is a truly unfathomable thing for me, which is both a very exciting and slightly frightening prospect. Yet I look forward to it, and welcome it.

I have never before looked forward to an academic year as I do now. This year will be an amazing one, I'm sure. The sheepskins are loosening, whether we will them to or not. With the loosening, comes the loss of some things and gaining of others. Though, perhaps it is not a "we" who are loosing the snug sheepskins, merely an "I."

My anticipation is wordless and oddly joyful. This shall be quite an important year, and from it, things will never be the same for some lucky folk. How fortunate are we lucky individuals!