Advice From A Freshman #1: The First Week

By Lacey Ross on August 28, 2012

I recently had a (possibly) life-changing experience with two of my friends after the first OSU Rowing Crew meeting of the year.

Before I specify exactly what the life-changing experience was, however, I would like to delve into why the experience occurred. Perhaps the number of intimidatingly fit individuals in the small makeshift auditorium was the catalyst. Maybe the allure of the shiny trophies and plaques on the walls of the boathouse swallowed me up and spat out a new person. Personally, I like to believe that I finally took the initiative to make the changes that I have wanted to make in my life for years.

My friends and I returned to my dorm, the typical meeting place, and sat down in a triangle around a flimsy dry erase board, “Ten Reasons Not To Smoke Cigarettes” printed didactically in faded red in the background. I snatched the marker out of its holder and wrote “Ambitions List, 2012-2013” across the top to act as the title for the bulleted list.

I wanted to be like those Crew students – no, I wanted to be better than them and to create my own version of a “fit and successful student.” The meeting elicited my most beautiful and most hideous objects of motivation: those of betterment and jealousy. I have made hundreds of plans in the past that I never put any effort into, but these plans, this “Missions statement” of sorts, felt so real and so possible, like a revelation. On the list, the three of us included making the Dean’s List, eating healthily and practicing portion moderation, continuing to exercise outside of Crew practice, participating in extracurricular clubs, making new friends, avoiding procrastination, and (trying) to steer clear of what we affectionately labeled, “the party scene”. We signed it and have strictly obeyed since then.

Are you skeptical that our “Ambitions List” has so far found success? I have found myself actually wanting to adhere to these rules I placed upon myself, my jealousy having matured into a fire in my belly like the flames under Centralia, Pennsylvania (explanation: the underground fires there are perpetual and vicious)! I am excited, I look forward to completing the tasks necessary to achieve the goals on the list, and I even have my far-sighted eyes on how satisfying it will be to make up an Ambitions List for 2013-2014 once the current list has been completed and retired.

What is the point of this story, Lacey? I want to inspire you, the reader, to go to that meeting you never would have attended in high school and shock the socks off your roommate when you tell them you are pursuing your secret love of, I don’t know, Shakespeare, and joining Acting Club, because that mere moment of mature and selfish (yes, selfish) decision-making could affect the whole direction of your college years.