It won’t be easy and many of you will think it strange as I try to explain how I feel. As I do, I hope that regardless of what I say, that there will be no ill-will or feeling brought about it. Certainly, you may not believe it all. One may think of me as you saw me. The individual who has roamed through these halls for the past five years who is still perfectly active even though I question the commitment of those around me.
Yet, when I came to this campus six years ago, I came with the dual-purpose of not only becoming a different person, but making this a different place. I couldn’t go through life with the same boring lifestyle of isolation and dedicating myself to books. Looking out at everyone having fun while staying out of it all, but I chose to join into this student life. I tried what I felt was everything. Student Government, Golden Key, Michigan Journal, WUMD Sports Broadcasting, broomball for two teams; but I know I will be remembered most for my time in Wolf Pack. Yet, I am certain that I will not be remembered for it, I honestly don’t expect to be remembered.
As for the awards, though they would have been lovely, I have grown to see them more as illusions to what one really should care about. The answer to a wonderful and successful time on this campus is the memories and the people that I have come in contact. To those that I have called friends, my hope is that I have at the very least provided some small change in your lives compared with the absolutely positive and major changes that have occurred in my life.
And now, I wish to make this final year. I want to make it clear and state my case. Although I am still pursuing my academic goals, I feel that I have done everything that I could for this campus. I have had my fair share of opportunities to enjoy the few wonders that our campus has and I have done so, in my own unique way. Yes, I have failed many times before and left nothing significant, but then again, I fear it shouldn’t be what I should be remembered for. Rather I hope that in my failed attempts that those who witnessed me will understand that I did what I had to do. More importantly, I hope people will see that I did all this without much deviation and without much compromise from my ultimate goals. Rather, they may not have been well thought out or maybe they were too well thought out. Yet, again, it was uniquely done the way I felt it had to be done.
However, I feel that now, I have done more than I can manage. A frequent theme in my time up here that seems to never go away, I must now think towards what needs to be done. As such, I will now be no longer seeking to involve myself in what I hope, will be a bright future for our often criticised, but still magical student life here at our sometimes belittled campus. However, I hope that our bright future will be without the many battles that I have faced in full and have fought again, in my own personal way.
To be frank and to the point, I had fun, I had my laughs and some disappointment. Overall, I had all I want to have; I have had my share of failures. And yet, as I put those sad feelings aside, I still find it rather funny. I find myself perplexed at how I was a senator, at how I attended meetings not only with members of our administration, but also with students from other schools. I find it rather odd, that I met a wonderful person from Canada who helped to save people from a burning plane in what was dubbed the “Miracle in Toronto.” I especially find it bewildering that I was president of an organisation and that I was able to walk onto the field at the Big House to watch our hockey team play on the same ice as their counterparts in Ann Arbor. More so, I did all of this on my own (and often brash) terms.
What is the point to do so otherwise? I may have changed as a person, but I still feel that everything I did was not to appease others, but rather to fulfill what I wanted to gain from this campus. Albeit it is selfish, if one does not gain satisfaction from all of this, what is the point in doing everything up here? Yes, I have complained about how student life is operated, but that doesn’t mean that I still did not try to get what I could from it.
After having said a bit much in my time, there is nothing more I can think of to say to you. All I hope is that when you read this that you will at least believe that all of it is sincere and true. I just only hope that if anyone ever finds out what I have done for this campus, that I be remembered that all I did, was done my way.