#1

Figures that I should get around to this on the last day of classes. When I began this prolonged process of listing (not really been on top of posting daily lately) I didn't know what all of them would be. I didn't know where I would go to law school. I definitely didn't know if I would be a Carolina student for 3 more years or not. But I knew what would be number 1. This one isn't a specific problem, more of a general feeling I get from the school and the town. It is becoming a city of ghosts for me. Every Dorm, every classroom, even benches and trees, are memories of people that aren't here, or there, anymore. Morrison is like the gutted skeleton of my undergraduate career; the building is there, but it's not like I left it. Chase is gone, Ray Felton is gone, and in just a few days the rest of my class will be as well. Not that I blame this on the school, or the town of chapel hill. If everyone could live here forever, then the experience would be as cheap as a cosmic burrito (veggie with sour cream, please). It's the fact that we come here lost and confused, and leave in much that same way that creates the warm, fond memories of Chapel Hill. It's not sullied by our first jobs, our failed marriages, and the shadow of our hometown's gossip. It's a waystation where we all come in out of the rain of real life, have a drink or two, then move on. I'd love to catch everyone in a bottle and take them to Austin with me, but it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't be as cool to see that kid from CTOPS finally out at the bar, and it would hurt much worse to find out that girl has a steady boyfriend who goes to State. Things are softer here, like the pain of rejection, the fear of responsibility, and the pressure of life. Some people would say it's unrealistic, that college kids are living in a bubble of privilege. We are; but we (for the most part) earned it, and the real world comes calling soon enough. So I hate UNC for reminding me of that first day when I rode the CTOPS bus, and that terribly awkward name game played in a circle in Dey. And for that first day of finals, no sleep and 2 cigarettes outside of Hamilton in the rain. Waking up to 90 degree heat with NO A/C in Ehringhaus. Finding my roommate passed out on top of his girlfriend in the hall. And all the rest of the times, things stupid to remember like eating at chickfila or taking a nap in the union. I don't hate UNC for giving me all this, and its a selfish hate to wish it wouldn't make me remember. But we're all a little selfish in the end aren't we?