The verdict is in and unfortunately things didn’t turn out in my favor. So at the end of this month I’ll be packing up and leaving for Oregon and transferring to a less economically demanding university back home. I know most of you are weeping bitterly at the thought of no longer having my fascinating eloquence drip off the back of the Graphic’s Perspectives pages but all good things must come to an end— most of the time sooner than we want.
But while I am sad to leave my year at Pepperdine was far from wasted. I learned several new skills like fencing. Not really but I think I learned a lot of endurance and maybe how to study (because before I came to Pepperdine I had never studied a day in my life). I learned survival skills like how to survive off Caf food or how to decorate a freshman dorm suite so that it doesn’t look like a prison. And perhaps most importantly I learned how not to automatically dislike people whose college car is a Porsche (I mean really?).
I was dazzled by stunning sunsets and terrified when the sun set behind the George Pepperdine statue (hate to beat a dead Shetland but that thing scares me). These kinds of things change a person— hopefully for the better. For instance I know that walking up to the SAC every day has changed my calves for the better.
I have had a lot of first experiences here: my first trip to Los Angeles my first Chick-fil-A and recently my first California earthquake. I hope (in that “I really don’t care” kind of way) that I don’t offend anyone when I say the Chick-fil-A thing is highly overrated. I attended my first mixer although I am still not 100 percent sure what a mixer is. And I received my first B (I now hate all forms of public speaking). But the point is that I had lots of experiences here that I never would have had back in my hometown and for that I am grateful.
When something in life comes to a premature end you have the strangest thoughts… such as whether all things considered I should have voted in the SGA elections. And how sad it is that I will never get to taste the Pepperdine La Brea Bakery (although at this point I’m beginning to wonder if anyone will). I am at a loss as to how I will get free T-shirts boxers In-N-Out and Chipotle next year. I wonder what view I will have outside my dorm next year though I am sure it won’t be a dazzling sunset over the Pacific or a volleyball court which depending on who is playing can be equally dazzling. As these life-changing issues wrack my brain I think about how I will remember this institution.
Hopefully I will remember my new university with fondness someday but for now I can remember with fondness the bizarre eccentricities of the one I am leaving. I must admit that it is sometimes hard not to feel bitter for a year that some could view as pointless but in other ways I am grateful to those who made it possible for me to stay this long. I believe there is a purpose to everything. Maybe I cannot afford to stay at the university of my choice but I did get one special beautiful year doused in sunshine and new friendship. I can never regret it. There is as they say a flip side to every coin. And the flip side to my sad departure is that perhaps there will be an equally scintillating version of the Pepperdine Dating Initiative at George Fox University.