Another semester almost under the belt.

All you have to do now is get through finals weeks, and you can go home and de-pressurize for a few weeks, chill with old high school buddies and load up on turkey (or ham), presents, familial love, reruns of “Law and Order,” eggnog and hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Now is a time for reflection.

Look back on your semester and ask yourself if it was everything you hoped it would be.

Did you study enough?

Did you get the kind of grades you thought you could get?

Did you spend enough nights at the bar?

Did you ask that cutie in your chem lab out for coffee, or did you let the crushing, irrational fear of humiliation prevent you from taking the mad stab at love that could have spelled the difference between a lifetime of joy vs. one bitter recrimination and self-loathing?

Well … ? DID YOU?

Life is about opportunities, and unlike the vast majority of the human race, you guys are blessed with the kind of options the race of man would have killed for 1,000 years ago. Don’t waste it.

Take stock of yourself.

Maybe one of these days when you’re back home, you can wake up before 2 p.m. and make a list in your head or on a piece of paper of all the things you would like to have done.

How many things did you jump on when you had the chance? Drinking doesn’t count, either.

Was it half? Was it a third?

We are all rife with potential at this time, and Iowa State has much to offer. Don’t just think about taking fencing someday, do it now!

Don’t just think it might be nice to work at the Daily, do it. Lord knows we need the people.

You want to lift weights, become an expert pool player, read everything Shakespeare ever wrote or learn to swim? Now is the time, and this is the place.

So if you wasted time this semester saying there is always next semester, you’re right.

But you won’t be right forever.