I remember getting a congratulatory email from Brooke Blanton about this time a year ago asking me to be the news editor for Hilltop Views.

I also remember thinking that I had not even applied for the job, and that I was not sure if I would accept it. I spent the fall semester trying to figure out what in the hell I was doing, with the support of my cool international co-editor, Riana.

Even though I thoroughly enjoyed everyone on staff, personal struggles kept me quite anti-social that semester; so it was not until our semester’s-end potluck that I realized the pot of friendship gold that I had failed to collect.

That potluck at the Munchkin House was a little over four months ago.

In those four months, I have gained two roommates; eight great gal pals; two Jacobs; probably a lot of weight from Opal’s happy hour half-off appetizers; a ferret; and a weird, vague sense of who I am, who I’m not and who I want to be.

You’ll probably never see my byline on the front page of the New York Times or the Statesman. I probably won’t end up in the journalism field at all, if I had to bet. But over the last nine months, I have learned more about myself as a student, friend, journalist, feminist and team member than most people will learn in a lifetime.

The ride hasn’t been easy — if you know me I’m not exactly one to take the path of least resistance — but it has been life-giving.

Thank you to Audrey and Riana for being there to catch me when I fall, to Amber for her side-eyes, to Sara for Dolce Neve, to Jacob Sports for letting me use him for his truck, to Jacob Dad for trusting me with the front page every week, to Lyanne for never putting up with my (expletive), to Hannah Lieck for being in Botswana right now, to Jenna for knowing her phonemes, to Max for love cats more than I do, and to Hannah Thornby for not (outwardly) judging me when I insisted on calling her brother Nigel.

Thank you for teaching me about journalism and about myself, but more importantly for reminding me discreetly that, “with all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”