Of all my values (and I feel that, as a college student I surprisingly have a lot) I refuse to compromise my religious ones. In a time where religion is almost become a taboo, I refuse to step down when the ideas that being a Catholic are considered wrong. I was brought up a devout Catholic. I went to church every Sunday, not just on High Holy Days. I was an active member of my church and I liked doing these things. I taught religious education. It was fun. I loved teaching 7 year olds why they went to Church every week. And let's face it. There is nothing wrong with that. People of my generation find it hard to believe that some individuals don't want to go out every weekend and find a new person to sleep with. They aren't looking for "some action". When I go to a club, I'm looking to go out with my friends and have a good time. We want to dance to some great music. And if we happen to have a drink, it's simply because we feel like having one, not because we have to, not because we are looking to get drunk, but simply because we felt like having one. I have never gotten drunk. I have never blacked out. And I know that I am in a small majoity of college students who act in such a manner. I refuse to compromise my morals and who I am simply to fit in with the 'in crowd'. I am not going to get drunk, sleep around, and do poorly in school, just to be seen as someone who's with it. I'm going to go to church, study, wait till I'm married and when I go out, go out simply to just have fun, not get drunk. Because that's who I am and I refuse to lose myself to please someone else.

I never understood the phrase "College is the best years of your life". I truly never have. College is the most stressfull time of my life. I take four or five classes. I hold a job and I also have a personal life. I'm not in my last year of college and I can't wait to be done. I have never understood the people who are dying to stay in college for as long as possible. Why?! I need to be done with school. This is far too much! I want to cut down on one of these things. If I am working on a film, I don't want to be worrying about four other classes at the same time. I want to be just worrying about that film. Cutting out that one thing will completely clear me of pretty much my entire pressures. College is not the best years of my life. It's the most STRESSFUL years of my life. Don't get me wrong. The people I've met here are amazing. I couldn't imagine my life without my roommates. They are truly my best friends and will probably be my best friends for the rest of my life. I'm making connections that I wouldn't have had without being here. I go to a great school. And I love it. But it's so stressful. Having a midterm followed bya quiz followed by a production class with a professor who is very demanding all in one day, is crazy. Teachers all think that their class is the most important and that you couldn't possibly have any more classes. College is crazy. Maybe it was easy when my mom and dad went. I don't know. I'll have to create a time machine and get back there to find out. But then again I'm under so much pressure from my classes that taking the time to build a time machine to find out, may just kill me. I think we need to do away with the phrase "College is the best years of your life". "College is very stressful, you meet great people and get wiped out very fast" seems way more like it.

When I was five, I was dying to be 9. My brother was 9 and I thought 9 was the best age in the world. When I was 12 I was desperate to be 16. My brother was 16. He could drive. He had a car. He could go wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. I wanted that freedom. When I was 14 I wanted to be 18. Not only could my brother now drive, but he was an adult. And used that argument with my dad, a lot. I wanted to use that argument. I was a freshman in highschool and desperately wanted my way. When I was 17 I wanted to be 21. My brother could drink. He was almost done with college. I was just about to enter college. I wanted to be everything he was. A grown up. Able to do it all. Now I'm 21. My brother is 25 and shopping for an engagement ring. I'd very much like to be 5 again. Growing up is a two edged sword. As you grow up, you always want to be older. You always want to be able to do what you cannot do. I wanted to be able to drive. When I could do that, I wanted to vote. The second I could vote I wanted to be able to drink and go to a club to dance. Now, I can do it all and I wonder why I was in such a rush to grow up so quickly. Why was I in such a rush to avoid my childhood. Why didn't I enjoy the time when I was 8 and could get away with so much more? I was always four years ahead of myself. I forced myself to grow up, to be right there with my brother because I wanted to be just like him. The best thing about growing up is the hindsight. I can now take every day one at a time and enjoy life for what it is.

In 2001 I was living at home in New Hampshire. I was 15 years old. On September 11th, I went to school believing it was going to be a perfectly normal day. I wished my parents a Happy Anniversary (it was their 25th) and went on my way. I went through my first three classes with no problems. They were boring (as most classes in high school are) and made my way to lunch. I sat with my friends and decided I wanted a drink. My friend and I walked over to stand in line together, just chatting away. And that's when another friend tapped me on the shoulder. "You know those two big towers in NYC? They're gone. Planes just flew into them". It was 10:15. I couldn't believe it. I thought it was a sick rumor. After all I was in high school. Sick rumors were an often thing to have going through the school. But five minutes later it was reaffirmed. Everything came crashing down. These planes had originated from our airport. Logan was only a 35 minute ride from where I lived. And while there was a smaller airport in NH, most went to Logan to get the non-stop flights to the other side of the country. I also had a friend of the family who was a pilot for the airline. His normal flight was Boston to California, the exact flight that went down. When the news of the Pentagon hit came, I had to watch a close friend go into panic mode. Her father was a retired General who still worked for the government in a consulting capacity. He was in Washington DC that week, having several meetings in the defense sector in the Pentagon. The section that was hit. And he wasn't picking up his cell phone. I was one of the lucky ones. My friend's father had just left the defense sector. He was standing in a hallway two sectors away when the plane hit. My pilot friend, who was supposed to be the pilot for the second plane that hit the towers (the south tower) had switched flights with the pilot who died that day. He wanted to be in town for a golf tournament. I was lucky to not be directly affected by 9/11 despite living in the affected area. When Boston had the bomb scares on the T, I was not in the city. Two summers ago when the Tunnel collapsed on a woman due to a huge hail storm, I had driven through it not 45 minutes before. I was on my way home from a friend's house. Now I am at school in Los Angeles. All around me hundreds of thousands of acres are burning and over a million people have been displaced from their homes. Yet I still go home to my apartment everyday. I wake up every morning and go to class. This weekend, my roommate and I plan to go to the movies and go shopping. 35 minutes away, people are losing their homes. But I am lucky enough to not be affected. It is sad to think that it is these large catastrophic events that cause one to take a step back and thank God for what they have. Each day it is so easy to just by pass everything that one has. Easy to forget that things can be taken away in a moment. But it is these moments that remind me how lucky I am to have my family. To be able to go to the school that I go to and to wake up everyday and go to work or class and not have a problem doing these every day mundane things. Disasters like 9/11, Katrina and the SoCal fires affect so many. For those of us who are lucky to defy them, we have so much to be thankful for. When are we going to learn to stop and be thankful? How many more disasters have to happen before we do?