College.

Some months ago, I saw a series on a blog where every day for the 30 days before her 30th birthday, the writer wrote on one of the top 30 moments which "have helped shape who I am and want to be".

I thought that was a creative and great idea, but my next birthday was 22, which wasn't as exciting. Plus, I felt a little young to be able to name which things have shaped me- I'm not that shaped yet! (Because I'm sure by 30 I'll be ALL DONE, right?)

However, in the two weeks since graduation, I've been reflecting on my four wonderful years at Wheaton. I've been thinking a lot about the many moments, people, experiences, and qualities of my school which were so influential in my college experience and to who I- well, am and want to be.

So, I decided I'm going to do a similar thing on here- a list of ___ shaping parts of my college experience. I put ___ because I have no idea how many I'll end up with. 30 seemed like a good number, but my initial brainstorming list was 28 and that left a lot off. 50 seems like a lot. Chet pointed out that since it was Wheaton's sesquicentennial this year maybe I should do 150, but that REALLY seems like a lot. So we'll see. Who knows, maybe 4o is a nice medium.

This is mostly for me- just starting to make the list was really interesting and as I've kept it running in my journal the last couple of weeks I've started to reflect on some seemingly small things which I can tell have influenced me and my time greatly. And I honestly really wish I'd done it after high school- I could name a bunch now but it would have been interesting and more relevant to see what I would have picked immediately after. I hope it will be fun to read too though! I'm going to tryyy really hard to keep them each brief :-)

I'm already stressing out about naming individual people, simply because there are way too many wonderful friends who have been influential in my life at Wheaton. I'm going to have to because duh, but yeah... I love and am thankful for everyone! And I'm just not including any Maryland things. Obviously Maryland people have been influential over the last 4 years, but then it would just never end.

So yeah! New blog series. Holler. Then maybe I can actually finish one single entry about real things from the pile of half-done ones I have in my drafts folder.

Stay tuned for the first one tomorrow...