I am leaving UF and Gainesville this Saturday after five years of working on (microbiology switching to biology, music theory and outsid field, and finally settling on Music Theory and Composition) Degree. I finally got it. And now i am preparing to pack all my stuff- more stuff than i could possibly imagine into boxes to leave at home or move to Baton Rouge. And though I’ve thought how much i will miss the UF, I don’t think I really will. The atmosphere is different than any city that I’ve lived a signficant amout of time in, but I imagine most college are pretty similar.
The Florida Gator football team will go on and win football teams and the tradition of the swamp and being of the toughest places to play will continue. Going to a rival SEC school, everyone asks me who I will root for and I feel obligated to say UF, but although I know orange and blue are opposite colors of the spectrum, and purple and yellow have little to appeal to, I hope to not let “my team” of the future ever get me too fights or shouting matches or have some good ol boy from Florida or Lousiana tell me I’m wrong.
Before I came to college, a friend of mine who had already graduated from there, told me the best spot at UF is right by the turd by Turlingon- he would sit and watch the pretty girls walk by all day. They’re still there- the pretty girls. Not the same ones. And a coach of mine said to a teammate of mine, who wanted to watch a basketball game instead of play ultimate, summing up one of the mainstays of life, “there’s going to a game every night, for the rest of your life, the teams will change, but basketball will be on later. you can watch that game tomorrow, play ultimate with your friends today.” It’s the human connections things that make things important and memorable.
So, I do not think I will miss much of UF. The main thing thing that made my college experience was the people. I don’t think I have any good memory of UF without someone else being there with me. And it’s the people that I will miss. I’m going to be here for another week, and I do not think I will be able to find everyone who has been around me these 5 years, that’s still around, to let them know they mean something to me, but they do.
