“Dancing through life
Mindless and careless
Make sure you’re where less
Trouble is rife
Woes are fleeting
Blows are glancing
When you’re dancing
Through life…”

This gif comes from the musical Wicked, during a song called “Dancing Through Life”. I choose this one because, through all the stress, I really feel like my first few months of college have been a great experience. I’ve founded new friendships, explored new attitudes, changed of my sense of fashion a bit from years prior. I’ve opened up pieces of myself that I’ve kept locked away for years and have learned to grow more and more comfortable in my own skin. And for the most part everything has ended up working out for me.
There have also been so many great opportunities and experiences that I have only been able to have due to going to this school. Like getting to see Cabaret on broadway with our Learning Community classes, being elected to be a part of Baruch Voices, meet a couple of amazing people which have become my partners in trying to start a club, and lastly (and most recently) going to meet my idol and favorite performer thanks to a new friend I’ve met here.
The biggest change that moving into this new chapter of my life as brought me is that I’ve began to adapt a more positive mindset. Where high school was all doom and gloom, college is a series of open doors to keep walking through and see where they go. While every door may not lead to the right place for me, I’ve also become less afraid of choosing the wrong thing.
In college, there is more freedom to do what we want, which is a completely new learning experience in itself. While the song preaches for a life without classes and to just live life and learn from that, I believe being at Baruch has enforced an idea in me that both are important. For someone who was always put more value in school than anything else, coming to college and only focusing on school for a while became extremely exhausting and lonesome. After a little while it became clear that I needed to be social as well. So balancing the two began to be the way to keep myself happy and well. Making time for my family, friends, shows and other things I love seemed like an impossible task at first, however it only became easier the more I learned how to work with my school schedule. Thank goodness for having Mondays off!
One part of the song that I can agree with (sometimes) is “life’s more painless for the brainless”, in the sense that learning to let go and relax every now and then has also been a huge life lesson I’ve had to learn. Becoming able to take things less seriously than I would have previously has changed my life for the better in helping deal with stress.

“Nothing matters
But knowing nothing matters
It’s just life
So keep dancing through”

http://25.media.tumblr.com/8c556d516afdb8ca26e10ad7dd76ce73/tumblr_mjbpdw9fIm1s3p0iuo1_500.gif

(lyrics from: http://www.metrolyrics.com/dancing-through-life-lyrics-wicked.html)

Mirror Mirror on the wall.

Do you see that girl that seems to have won it all?

Smiling down the city streets,

Making new friends with every bird and bee.

Far from her tower, where she used to sit and cower

Under the weight of the beast she thought herself to be.

To hard for her to believe, that she could be among the fairest of them all,

Never dreaming that she could ever be the Belle of her own ball.

Trapped by the fear of the dragons, wolves and poison apples that were everywhere.

But one little spark set her free.

Jumping on that magic carpet and soaring high

Traveling to a new land she has be dying to see.

And for a while, everything become as magical as life could be.

Living out these days brought happy new adventures,

Even the chance at meeting her prince.

Though the biggest journey along the way,

Through each and every day,

Came in discovering who she can be.

Only too soon did new perils make their way to this land,

And she had to move to another.

But the girl began to know just what to do, to keep her happiness alive

For she had learned a great deal from the fairies and genies that she called her friends.

Finding the light was the key out of her old tower,

But darkness never stays in once place.

So while she does return to it again and again,

It’s only for a short while.

Because now she knows the secrets on how to find her way back,

To the happiness she knows is true.

With Lumiere on her side, she is much less afraid

To face the Big Apple and whatever else gets thrown in her way.