The Ryder moving truck is reserved, I found someone to sub-lease my apartment for the summer and I’ve got a few job interviews set up. And yet, there are still seven weeks or so until graduation.

AHHHHH!

I’ve got a serious case of senior-itis. All I can think about is life after graduation. I just can’t seem to focus on class, or anything else for that matter.

I’m so eager to leave ISU — even more eager to leave than I was to come here to begin college four years ago.

Four years of my life have been spent at ISU. Considering that is approximately one-fifth of my entire life, ISU has had quite an impact on me. And even though I can’t wait for graduation, I still get a little reminiscent about my time spent at ISU.

There were a lot of good times.

I’m sure you, like me, remember what a great feeling it was to experience for the first time true freedom from parental guidance.

Or maybe you remember the first all-nighter — studying or doing something other than studying.

Do you remember learning to like coffee and then relying on it for your mere survival?

Or maybe you remember your first Veishea and learning what it meant to party.

Do you remember rooting for Troy Davis to win the Heisman? Do you remember the times ISU actually won a football game?

Or maybe you remember your first time campaniling or your first concert at the M-Shop.

Do you remember suddenly finding your calling in life and deciding on a major, only to change it the next semester?

Maybe you remember the night you finally turned 21 and learned a new meaning for the phrase “one too many.”

Or maybe you remember finding a group of people or a student organization who thought exactly like you.

Maybe these experiences are yet to come for you.

Memories of our college years are different for each of us, yet we share the same rites of passage of the college experience. The new and different situations we experience change us all in some way.

It’s not only the good experiences that change us. The college experience wouldn’t be the same without the frustrations of ISU.

I mean, could you really call yourself an Iowa Stater without hearing the annoying mechanical voice on the other end of Touch Tone Registration telling you, “I’m sorry section X is full. No other section with the same enrollment criteria is available.”

And, as you panic, thinking you won’t get into the classes you need in order to graduate on time, the voice consoles you by saying, “I’m sorry, I haven’t received a request from you. Did you forget to press the pound key?”

I know I can’t be the only student who momentarily went insane, going on a obscenity rampage directed at the voice.

Do you remember walking across the “frozen tundra” and thinking going to class was just not worth freezing your butt off?

Or maybe you remember spending 20 minutes or longer desperately looking for a place to park so you could run some errand on campus that would take less than five minutes.

Do you remember being fed up by the actions of, oh say, Jischke or GSB, or maybe even the Daily?

Good or bad, these experiences defined who we are now or who we will become.

My time spent here has had its ups and downs, but overall, it’s been a good four years for me. I hope my classmates who started here four years ago can say the same. And, at the risk of sounding sappy, I hope the students who are still experiencing college life will be able to say the same as well.

Only seven more weeks until graduation!

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Jonquil Wegmann is a senior in community and regional planning from Bellevue.