First Person: In This Together - Ringing Bells as a Way to Enlighten Your Future
“Ding” and that is a time to make a wish. Like any college student, I wish I can find myself on this long life journey and that my soul is committed to something I truly love.
“Ding” and you stare at people, hoping that in a pause of a second or two in a symphony of ringing bells you can find a friend who makes the same wish. You are trying to look right into the eyes with all this pale light radiating from a sacred candle this very person is holding. Yes, eye contact!
“Ding” and you are getting lost as you are missing your wishes.
The most loyal friends, the love of the life, no morning classes, my degree.
You chaotically keep on wishing, trying to prioritize what comes first and what comes last until the loud voice takes ease on you: “Welcome to the class of 2022!”
A wave of emotions is covering you: excitement mixed with a terror of the unexplored, curiosity for something new, tremble from knowing that the door of adulthood is right in front of you. There is so much responsibility now, you promise yourself to find the “professional job” meaning, keep up the work, remain strong and consistent. This weight of student life is on your shoulders. But you are not alone.
And after two years at SLU, I can only tell you will never be. From the first eye contact with that person, making friends is a task you may get better at than at academics, especially when you see familiar faces every hour or two. Connections you make here are not just long-lasting, but integral for your further life and of course, primarily, connections with your friends.
All my high school time, I naively thought to connect my life with sciences and become a heart surgeon, but tons of chemistry and biology recorded in notebooks just shed a light on the fact that medicine was not my field of interest. I knew that I liked humanities: history and literature, but I never knew my true passion until a friend of mine dragged me into St. Lawrence's Newell Center for Arts and Technology (the NCAT), a video lab in our arts center, and introduced me to filmmaking. At first, I resisted going as I never acknowledged any curiosity for moviemaking, but my friend insisted just to give it a try. He was editing one of the videos for school and was a true magician on Adobe Premiere. He discovered my fascination and drew all the attention so that I kept asking: “And how do you do this? And that? What about this transition?” Not even being aware of it, he has started the biggest chapter of my life by randomly inviting me to kill some time in the video lab. How ironic to find your life passion in trivia but I suppose that is how some people find themselves on a career path.
My room window points at the Gunnison Memorial Chapel, and almost every day at 5 p.m. I can hear the ringing bells from there. A series of flashbacks from Matriculation floods my head. Still so many great memories: first Sergi’s, first friend, the first time being an international student in the U.S. Yet, in this vivid sound I find the gratitude for the place that has opened my eyes wide, gifted me wonderful people, provided me with a chance to be who I want to be, and most importantly, given me hope that discovered passions will turn into your favorite job if you truly wish.
