On Plans:

I have contrived a plan, hopefully squeezing 600 years into one lifetime.

I will major in journalism and minor in education. I will graduate and be a foreign correspondent for 5-8 years, travel to the Congo and Russia and everything. Then I will settle down and work for a small-city newspaper while I raise some kids. After the kids are moved out, and journalism has burned me out, I'll go back to complete my education degree. Then I'll teach middle school and be the crazy old teacher that everybody loves. Over the summers, I can write my books and kick around with the grandkids.

Some plan, huh? After the past few months, I don't know why I bother making plans anymore- nothing ever goes like I expect it to. For all my intentions I'll end up opening a bakery or a hot dog stand, or become President. Who can say?

If coming to college has taught me one thing - life is bigger than me. The best I can do is what I love, and do it well, and see where it takes me. Because if you had told me one year ago that I would be a journalism major in Erie, PA, I would have laughed my head off. I would have not believed what friendships would stick and which ones would fall by the wayside. If you had said that living at a public state school is not as nice as being home, I probably would have run away with my fingers in my ears.

And it's not what I planned, and sometimes it's not what I had hoped. But it is real, and there is hope within it. For the first time I feel elbow-deep in life, like I'm getting my hands dirty and I'm finally seeing what it's all about. I'm finding out what is most important to me, and who I really am. And the truth is that it hurts to grow, usually. But there is nothing like coming home and standing in your room and feeling...big. Like you are in color, and the room is in black and white.

So, I'll keep making plans, and maybe a fraction of them will actually carry out. But then how sad would it be if your life went exactly according to plan? If you weren't forced to grow and become more than you were yesterday, or last month, or last year? No, all things considered, I like this way better. I am not afraid of the growing pains.