Advice for Seniors
Friends, it's going to be over before you know it. Blink once, and you'll find that that thesis you don't have a topic for has already been written, the stresses of moving in and moving out are both over, and your Gamaliel Painter's cane is hanging on the wall gathering dust. Some of you will be headed off to grad school, others traveling the world; some will have high-paying jobs and others non-paying jobs. Whether for the short or long term, your "future" will be settled. It is a darn scary thought, but I can speak from experience - whether you like it or not, college ends.

I don't think I'm very good at witholding my feelings, so to be honest, I'm often quite depressed these days. We have been lucky - or more acurately, we have been blessed: not everybody loves college like I know I did. Even back in May, though, I wasn't too sad - I was ready to be done with the papers, and I was proud of what I'd accomplished with your help and the Lord's. For some reason I had a heapload of faith that God would provide for me in the way he did after high school - four years ago he gave me a whole new collection of friends that became in many ways bigger and better than the set I'd had before. He taught me more than I could have hoped for and took me places I never would have dreamed of going to. He carried me through the transition relatively smoothly and painlessly. Thus when I said goodbye to you guys, I was confident that I'd see you again soon, and that bigger and better things were on the way.

I hate to be a realist, but this transition hasn't been smooth for me, and it may not be for some time. I think that somehow I'm in the place where God wants me and needs me at the moment, but I don't like it much. I want you to take a good long look at what you have at Midd and love it and live it with all that you are. While God's love is something that you will have forever - from which neither height nor depth nor angels nor demons nor life nor death can separate you - Midd is something that you will have to leave. Granted, it will still be there if you want to come back and relive the glory days (which I'll be doing when it is my three month alma mater and has been in session for only about three weeks without me), but once you have your cane in hand, the visits will always be tastes and samples of someone else's experience, not your own. So here's a list I'll share of some things I'm really GLAD I did at Midd, and some things I WISH I'd done before my four year term was up:

Things I'm GLAD I did at Midd:

• brought speakers and performers I wanted to hear and helped arrange events I wanted to see happen
• at least once tried to give a talk to CF on something that convicted me
• took every opportunity to sleep outside or go for a hike
• started (though later than I would have liked) to feel really connected to the church community
• started (though later than I would have liked) to feel connected to some professors and my department community
• made friends with people who will be at the school or in the area for much longer than four years
• sacrificed my work every once in a while (HA!) for some experiences that would be far more memorable (heck, so far Phi Beta Kappa hasn't done me much good in the job market...). Some examples are 24 hours of praise, retreats, concerts, relay for life, xenia events, and just long conversations into the night...
• took the opportunity to learn a lot about leadership, even if it meant being really burned out every now and then
• studied abroad
• journaled consistently
  
• never put fun at the bottom of my priority list (or almost never) and somehow maintained relationships enough to have many shoulders to lean on when the going got tough!

Things I WISH I'd done at Midd:

• make my physical health and wellbeing more of a priority
• seek more actively and early on the wisdom and guidance of older mentors (like those lunchtime meetings with Deb Dickerson, or going to Matt's office or Sister Diane's or Laura Lieber's, or Laurie Jordan's, etc. etc. with questions about life)
• pray more with my friends (this especially slacked off my senior year)
• get more involved in Xenia
• maintain individual relationships with non-Christians the way I did with Christians
• start Spanish my freshman year :)
• volunteer more in the Addison County community
• fix my ski bindings (to save my knees and mego's) and ski more
• do my homework earlier so I wouldn't miss a single breakfast accountability meeting
• watch the sunset/sunrise from one of the chapel cupulas
• know every moment what a blessing it is to be alive in such a magnificent place

SO...your experience may be very different from my own, and hopefully you'll be a little more ready to graduate next year than I was in May and am now - actually, you guys are probably the main reason I'm wishing I were going "home" in a couple of weeks...but I just thought I'd share the little bit of "wisdom" that I've acquired from the senior experience. Of course, your elders will always tell you that things are harder than you think, so I'm sure this advice is not all that surprising. I've just found, though, that despite what our parents always tell us about planning for the future, senior year is also VERY MUCH about the PRESENT. You'll keep most of your friends after you leave, but you won't be able to wander across the hall into their room, or call them spontaneously to join you for a meal. There won't necessarily be 30-person Sunday brunches with strawberry-topped waffles or crazy awesome concerts and lectures for free at your finger tips every day of the week. There probably won't be a gigantic community of curious intellectuals, and their may not be Christians your age who you can both party with on Friday night and share a pew with on Sunday morning. Their WILL be ways to learn and grow and become more of the woman that God wants you to be, and their WILL be people to help that to happen, but the concentration and proximity of opportunities is bound to be less than at Midd. Make that last $40,000 worthwhile and try your darndest not to let anxieties about NEXT year ruin THIS one!

Take the time to thank God for all that Midd has to offer - in April's words, the good, the bad and the random - and expect a double ring every once in awhile when your old friend Devo wants an update on the news. I want to do my best to be there for you guys this year like you were there for me last year, and my ears are always available for any vents you want to offer them. I'm home pretty much every night of the week after 9 or 10 CST, and I'll try to be better about leaving my cell phone on so you don't have to worry about waking up my folks calling the land line after 11. You girls mean everything to me, and I'll miss you like you can't imagine!!!
- posted by Devon @ 12:30 PM