You can take the girl out of the college, but never the college out of the girl....

It is drawing nearer to the best week of the year for an IU student.  For those who do not go to IU, they just don't get it on the same level as the students/alumni.  Spring in Bloomington is indescribable.  It's a gorgeous campus and town in the Spring.  Something magical floats around this time of year.  Of course, I'm completely biased on the subject.  As a freshman, I really had no idea what to expect.  You hear all of these stories from classmates and friends and the anticipation builds...but I found myself locked in the library most of the week (clearly my professors didn't know about the student proclaimed holiday).  Some of my best memories from college with my friends occurred during Little 5.  Out of all that I miss about college and Bloomington, I think this is what I miss the most.  We all worked extra hard to get homework and studying done in advanced in order to hang out all week long.  How much fun did we all have together? Cookouts, bags, concerts, porches, beer olympics, beer pong, frats, random nights with no plans, house parties, bars, etc. etc.  Hey, IU, I'll see you next weekend to reminisce with my friends about good times...and maybe make a few great memories along the way! (I'm so excited to see all my TBO loves anddddd Amanda anddddd a slew of other random friends from four years there...we're all having separation issues)

Who wants to watch 'Breaking Away' now?



Ps. Here's a little tiny trip down memory lane via pictures, one from each year of college.



Freshman year edition: The girls who became family, HH.


Sophomore year edition: Happy to have one of my best friends from high school visit!


Junior year edition: We will always love Rabb 1.


Junior year part 2: this was the best year so it warrants two pictures. Had so much fun with you three that day!


Senior year edition: Washington girls.

Indiana, we're all for you...

I have sat down a few times to compose a post about my time at IU as an undergrad.  Each time I think all of these great memories and ideas for my post, and then get stuck.  This time I am determined to finish and publish a post.  Hopefully all of my IU friends read and smile as they think about all the great times we had.

I do not think that any of us would have thought that we would feel this way four years ago when we moved into the dorms (more specifically…Teter Rabb 1).  By the end of that year we were complaining about the small dorm rooms, the crappy food in our food courts that after a year no longer seemed to be that great, and were just ready to move home for the summer (even though it meant leaving our friends for a few short months). By the end of sophomore year we were ready for a change of scenery.  We were over the Villas (especially some of those who actually lived there and were not just a very frequent visitor like me), tired of house parties, and ready for what junior year had in store for us.  By the end of junior year, we were all experienced in the bar scene and stuck in the same old routines, I was tired of living so far away from campus (and all my friends), and was more than ready to move into a townhouse on 14th St with my besties and be walking distance from campus (and well, I guess the bars too).

But when we started our senior year, we knew we couldn’t take it for granted because we only had one year left.  Senior year I made it a point to make it to all the tailgates and at least one football game (I realize now how much I slacked on the soccer games, and this disappoints me in retrospect).  We took advantage of the gorgeous days in Bloomington by going on hour long walks.  By the end of the year I had a tradition of going to Kilroy’s for dinner on Tuesdays ($2 Tues) with the same group of girls or on Thursdays ($3 Thurs) for dinner (and the free shirts of course) with my roomies and the rest of the girls.  I got to the point where I basically knew some of the staff.  That place slowly, but surely became my favorite hangout in town.  By the time spring rolled around it was harder and harder to get all of us out in one place at the same time because we were all busy.  We had our last hoorah, the TBO Bar Crawl and we were finally all together at one time... celebrating in true TBO fashion.  This time around as the last day of finals drew nearer, we all would have loved to have stayed in town together.  Not one of us wanted to leave what we had come to know as life for the last four years.