Winter break brought with it all of the things that I expected. I was able to catch up on my sleep and spend some quality time with my family and my new puppy. I had an opportunity to catch up with some of my friends from high school and to put in some hours at work.

Break also brought with it the realization that I am beginning to consider Ames home.

This was never a rational decision on my part. I never sat down and decided that because I spend a majority of the year here that I should officially call it home. I share my tiny room, have to use a key to get into the bathroom and must abide by residence hall rules. This isn’t exactly what I would think of as a homey place. It came to my attention when I was talking with some of my family members and spoke of home. I realized that I was talking about things here at school, not about the house that I have lived in since I was ten.

Hearing those words was more of a shock to me than it was to anyone else. I had never stopped to think about it, really. In the rush of my semesters here, I was just too busy with classes, friends and work to worry about something that had always seemed so simple.

At the time, I just brushed all thoughts of that aside and enjoyed the festivities. Later, I began to think about what I had said.

Home. It had always been so easy to define before. I live in north central Iowa. I live in the gray house with light blue trim on the corner. My room is the first room on the left.

All of that really hasn’t changed, I guess. My family hasn’t moved since I came to Iowa State. They still live in the same small town, in the same house, and I have the same room to call my own. All of the things that I didn’t bring to school with me (which, considering how full my room here seems, is an amazing amount of stuff) still fills the room. I think that it becomes a walk-in closet when I leave, but overall it remains the same.

It isn’t that I don’t feel welcome there, either. I know I am welcome any hour of every day, no matter what. I know I can go there if something is wrong, or if I just want to get away from here. My family hasn’t changed either. They are just the same as I remember them.

If it isn’t my house, my room, or my family that has changed, then I must be the one changing. I figured I was basically the same person I was when I graduated from high school. I have lost some very important people in my life, made some new friends and taken some classes. I couldn’t have changed that much, could I?

Getting caught up in the rush of classwork and life, I didn’t realize my priorities, and my feelings about many different issues, had changed. They haven’t changed completely, but that is fine because Iowa State is a transition.

Being a college student means adapting from being considered a child to being considered an adult. It means leaving your hometown and getting closer to the real world. Classes actually pertain to future occupations, and GPAs are more of a consideration. It is going from getting an allowance to being faced with a full-time job. It essentially means leaving all of the things that you know behind and facing the flaws, and the frightening realities, of the world all around us.

It is amazing that just one word, home, can bring so many other concerns to mind. This is because it is the key to the world that we are leaving behind when we come to college. Until now, it had been the center of our lives, and no matter what, we knew things would almost always work out just fine. That is a difficult thing to leave behind. Without a security blanket like that, we are forced to go out on our own, making our own ways in this world, forming our own opinions and living our own lives.

For the next five semesters, Ames will be home. After I graduate, it will be time to have another place of my own. These things are just unavoidable. One thing is for sure though: I will always feel at home in north central Iowa, in that gray house with light blue trim, on the corner.

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Laura Luiken is a sophomore in English from Webster City.