Truth or Dare

Three things I know to be true:
     1) It's already April
     2) This is the last week of term before break
     3) I will be home a week from tomorrow

How did it get to be April? I feel like I do this every month in one way or another, saying "omg it's ____" or "wow can it really be ____ already?!" It's no less true any other month than it is now. I suppose the passage of time shouldn't surprise me that much- it's not a new concept- but somehow it continues to amaze me just how time really can fly. Days and weeks and months suddenly go from future to past and it seems as if I never notice until it sneaks up on me. That is, until a new month begins.

I was speaking with a friend the other day, and they were telling me about something exciting they're looking forward to that's happening towards the end of June. We were talking about it as a distant future kind of thing, like June is summer and summer is far away. Then I said you know, that's actually pretty soon. Naturally, they responded as if I was crazy thinking when it's barely April that the end of June is right around the corner. But I explained my rationale and it really makes sense. People always say that time passes quicker if you set yourself mini milestones to get there, rather than a single really distant big one. It's baby steps in time. The evidence in this theory lies in a life built around academics. My own case study: I have this last week full of participant sessions and project work and paper writing, then 3 weeks of break in which I will fly across the ocean, run around Massachusetts to do as much as possible, drive to Delaware/Maryland for a few days then drive back, then finish up my time at home doing as much as possible again. Then it's May. In May we have 1 week of possible lectures, then it's exam time. By the time exams and projects are completely finished, it's June. When you break it down like that, you barely have time to "stop and smell the roses" as you're flying through the days. In that sense, the end of June might as well be next week.

I've realized as I finished that paragraph that it sounds like a rather depressing view of things. I really don't mean it that way. I really just mean to say that I am regularly astonished at the speed with which these baby steps of time are coming at me and, inevitably passing. It makes me reflect back on last spring and summer, which seems like not so long ago and lightyears past all at the same time. This time a year ago, I was sitting in Delaware rocking my last month or so of college. This year, I'm in Wales working on my thesis. Crazy.

Speaking of my thesis, participant count as of this afternoon: 52


Since I've titled this post Truth or Dare, and I began with truth, I will end with dare. I dare all you blog-lurkers who apparently read this but never comment to come out of hiding and say something. Anything.