Something that hasn't quite hit me yet is the fact that I only have one more of these reflections left to write after I finish this one. I think my blissful unawareness during the end of May as I write this accurately sums up how my junior year of college went. When I think about the past academic year, I feel like I blinked and it was gone. But somehow, when I think about everything I did and everything I went through, it feels exactly the opposite. 

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The past year was extremely difficult for me. I'm not sure exactly why I feel this way, because I had a lot of good things happen and made so many memories. However, looking back on the year as a whole, I feel a sense of sadness. I feel like it went by so fast and I spent most of my time during it stressed out about something trivial or focusing on something that wasn't important. During my sophomore year reflection, I mentioned that I wanted to start going to CAPS or seeing a therapist, and this is the one goal I had for myself that I didn't fulfill. I know now more than ever that I want to start working to achieve this goal, and this will be a bigger priority for myself in the next few months. 

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Although the year as a whole was difficult, I learned so much about myself and pushed myself to do different things. I learned how fun in-person Greek Life activities can be, went to a variety of different concerts, and was elected the Vice President of the Omega Xi chapter of Kappa Delta. I think my biggest accomplishment of my junior year was learning to prioritize things other than school. For as long as I can remember, I've been very focused on my grades and if something fun was happening before an exam or even if I just had a lot of homework that I needed to work on to stay on track, I would skip the fun activity. This entire year taught me how to prioritize the time with my friends and be more sociable, which obviously came with some hard times for me, but overall it was something I was proud of myself for navigating. I even managed to get all A's throughout this process, which further solidified my new view on life: if I want to do something fun, I should just do it.

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Academically, not much has changed for me. I am continuing to study both biology and classics, and I am still really enjoying it. I am still planning on taking a gap year after I graduate to apply to law school with the hopes of becoming an intellectual property lawyer. The one thing I am extremely excited about is that in less than three weeks, I will be leaving Ohio to live in Athens, Greece for five weeks. I will be taking a course about illegal antiquities and I am absolutely ecstatic. Since I started college, I've wanted to visit Greece, and now it's finally happening!

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Despite my somewhat solidified plans for after graduation, the upcoming year holds a lot of uncertainty for me. I am considering studying abroad again during the spring semester, but this would involve missing the graduation ceremony. I also am a bit nervous about graduating in general. I feel like my time in college has gone by so unbelievably fast, and I'm not sure if I feel ready to be done quite yet. I hope this next year will be a transformative one for me: I want to start going to therapy, I want to finish strong in my term as Vice President, and I want to decide about my spring semester plans and feel good about it. 

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Though this past year has been difficult for me emotionally, I am hopeful for what the next year holds. I am looking forward to the new experiences I will have in Greece, and the lots of final experiences I will have as a college senior.