Where Have You Been and Where Are You Going?

Somebody needs to come up with a shorter title for the first journal entry. Anyway, I’m Fionnuala O’Donnell, born and raised in a small town on Long Island (I think it’s actually “in” Long Island, but that just doesn’t sound right to me). Growing up in a small town like Lynbrook, while many people see it as a negative, I’ve grown to love the physical closeness of everyone. I’ve grown up knowing that all of my friends are within a 10 minute walk from my house, so college was a big adjustment for me when all my friends left. And to me, my friends are everything. I tend to be the mediator and advice giver of the group, not always putting in my two cents unless it’s asked for, but it is appreciated that much more.

Living in such a small town would assure something else: attending a small high school. I had a graduating class of 240, and while it is bigger than other towns’ high schools, we all still knew everybody walking across that stage at graduation. Over my 4 years at high school, I’ve developed relationships with a lot of classmates and teachers (good or bad) that I will never forget.

One of the biggest influences to my life was the music department (band geek alert). I was the drum major of the marching band, on the board of the music honor society, and my favorite thing of all, a clarinet and sax player for the pit orchestra for the yearly musicals. Some of the friendships I’ve made over the past 4 years wouldn’t have been possible without the musical. We would start practicing, as an orchestra, in September and not come together with vocals until about 3 week before the show. That rehearsal is called a sit-and-sing and usually happened nice and early on a Saturday morning (not pleasant). Then the last week before the show, “Hell Week”, was exactly what it sounds like: hell. It was 4 never ending nights of dress rehearsals. And although “never ending” is obviously an exaggeration, we would arrive at school around 5 and get out around midnight; we would sleep walk through school that week. All of that work was put in so we could have 3 shows: Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday matinee. My last show was a difficult show to perform. I was exhausted from track and late night rehearsals and applying for colleges, but it was also the best one. All the seniors couldn’t perform the exit song when the house lights went up because we realized we would never be doing this and got a wee-bit emotional. But I couldn’t have asked for a better last performance.

For the first semester, I hope to make friendships that last throughout college. Whether or not we have as many classes doesn’t matter but I want to be able to look back and feel like my “college experience” of commuting had some positive gains (certainly NOT the “freshman 15”). Of course I want to succeed in any and all classes that I take and I want to look out for every opportunity to better this experience over the next semester and the other seven. College was a difficult transition from high school, but I feel like I am adapting well to not being “spoon-fed” (as LHS so kindly did).