F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

"What we leave here is more than this class. It's the whole heritage of youth."

I was just looking through old pictures - Carnegie Mellon people and events over the past four years - and I started getting a little sentimental. It hasn't quite struck me yet that I'll soon be leaving all this and moving on to other things in other places.

Graduation is in a week and a half, and though I'm happy for the things to come, I'm already a little mournful for the things that are passing. Although it sounds a little cheesy to say, these past few years have been pretty formative. I know I'm a different person coming out than I was going in. And when a place is so much a part of your development, it becomes such a big part of who you define yourself to be. Something of myself is going to be left here after I leave. At the same time, I'll be taking a bit of this place with me wherever I go.

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." - Robert Frost