I can't believe it. I survived.

    I, Kim Shable. Who dropped out of Brownies after one day because she couldn't cut it. Who cried for days at the prospect of going to band camp in high school. Whose high school teachers, I suspect, had a pool going as to the exact day I would come home in disgrace. I survived my freshman year in college.

    No, I didn't just survive. I learned something.

    I learned that there are a hundred different ways to change your clothes without ever getting naked. And that I know none of them. I learned that contrary to what your mother has always told you, your entire wardrobe can consist of four pairs of jeans and a bazillion t-shirts with cartoon characters on them, and people will still take you seriously. I learned that headbands are decidedly uncool (only after sporting one for over a month), and that you should never, ever, ever borrow your roommate's clothing without asking (I'm still wrecked with guilt, Sarah, you have to believe me!)

    College has taught me that a little knowledge about Richard Nixon goes a long way, and that the best thing you can say in the midst of a heated political science debate is either something about pluralism or "an elite is an elite is an elite." (I'm sorry, Prof. Walling. I had no other choice.) The language lab is a place of death, and is to be avoided at all costs-- unless you're watching a film with subtitles. You don't play "Paul McCartney's Greatest Hits" in concert band. And your piddly scientific calculator is no match for... well, anything the math department has to offer.

    One day, no matter how hard you try to avoid it, you'll end up in the middle shower, surrounded by talkers, and you'll be forced to engage in naked conversation. Nothing will happen to you if you eat pasta twice a day for four hundred thousand days, so long as you throw in an english muffin every once in a while to balance it out. If you get sick, instead of trying to make you feel better your next door neighbors will thumb wrestle for your belongings.

    Those Anne Geddes babies and Celine Dion are in league with Satan; and yet, no one wants to see a picture of your cat. Your Neil Diamond CD is no longer an acceptable object to own, and must be destroyed at all costs (or at least hidden somewhere secure.) Girls will kiss girls; boys, however, have to redouble their efforts to maintain their unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality.

    You can make any word slang by adding "ass" to it.

    Monkeys are funny. The word 'infidel' is funny. Infidel monkeys are hilarious.

    Absolutely no one will play board games with you. And when they do, they soundly trounce you. By cheating. (Amy. Adam. Brandon.)

    Most importantly, I learned that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to remain the same person you were in high school. But, thinking back... do you really want to be?