18

The fall after I turned 18, I enrolled as a freshman at St. Lawrence University, a small liberal arts school in Canton, New York. It’s going to be hard to contain each of these next four years into a paragraph.

It's totally fine to bring stuffed animals to college with you

In my first year at SLU, I feel like I was half there, and half still involved in home friends/things. On the home side of things, I was dating a Swiss foreign exchange student who was a senior at my old high school. I went home some on the weekends (it was 2 1/2 hours away) and spent time with friends. This time included my old friend Jessa Vosburg-Allen literally dragging me into a piercing shop near Albany and holding my hand as I got my nose pierced. This was followed later by a way less scary navel piercing. Counting my ears, at one point I had 7 piercings and one tattoo. Bad ass.

 I had an awesome roommate and a friend for life in Shawna Weeks, who came all the way from Hawaii because she liked New York City once when she went on a school trip. She tolerated all my random bouts of hyperactivity, need for late night talks, sleep talking, and my first experiences with college parties.

My freshman year, 9/11 happened. I had the chance to volunteer at Ground Zero in December with a great group of people. It was so, so sad during the day, and then fun and exciting when we burned off steam at night. I remember that on the tables that were set up in the Salvation Army tent for the firemen, policemen, and other workers, there were baskets filled with cards and letters of support that were sent from all over the country. A lot were from children, and the men and women would come in for a rest and they would sit and read the cards and it would bring a smile to their faces. The little things do make a difference. 



The workers would stop and thank us for volunteering.
It was humbling, to say the least.

I explored a variety of different clubs and activities at SLU. When I started, I figured I wasn’t good enough at any sports to play in college, so I thought I was done with organized sports. But in the spring of my freshman year, I discovered rugby and ended up playing all four years. I don’t even think I could describe the culture that is rugby. It's like a family. To this day, when I think about being on the field, chasing someone down, and throwing down in the mud, my adrenaline starts pumping!