Well, here I am. Sipping lemon ginger tea with honey and basking in the afternoon sunshine to soothe my aching bones. To be clear, university isn't the thing that is making my bones ache, but a vicious head cold I've been fighting for weeks. University, rather, is making my mind soar and my identity take on a fluid state that all at once terrifies and excites me to extremes.
I've seen friends altered incredibly by this mysterious place of higher learning, but I never fully internalized what it would mean for me. That I would forget myself and everything that once used to occupy my mind completely. How I would develop like a darkroom photographic print, cutting off vestigial parts of me to let new limbs grow.
The first thing I noticed about university was that everyone (mostly) is in the same position. I arrived early and anxious to my Gender, Race, Sexuality, Social Justice 101 class to find fifty-ish people crowded around the classroom door, nervously clutching notebooks and oversized textbooks to their class. It was liberating and calming to realize that everyone was just wishing the person next to them would take out their earbuds and say hey.
The second thing I realized was that professors aren't scary, disconnected monsters. Rather, they are human beings just as I am, who sat in my same position, in a 100-level course, feeling the same overwhelming emotions as I was.
So, before I get too philosophical or idyllic, I will leave you with this. I have never been so excited to learn in my whole life. I have never loved terror so much, akin to the sensation of traveling without a plan. I have only my hopes and expectations, assumptions and changing self, as I write this.
I have high, high hopes for you, UBC.
Love always,
Coral
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