It's official: my first year of college is over. I've passed all the exams, handed all my reports in before the final deadline, received the remaining credits. All the Is are dotted and all the Ts are crossed. I've been looking forward to this day for weeks, but now I feel a little lost...

A lot has happened over the course of the year. I remember how nervous I was on the first day: I almost threw up on the bus on my way to college. I did not enjoy that day: I hadn't met my best friend yet, so he couldn't calm me down, and one of my old friends just said: 'Stop whining, you're awesome.'
In the end there was no reason to be nervous and before I knew it I'd made a bunch of new friends.
It was a funny year, in which I almost got stuck in a revolving door, learnt a little Mandarin and went to Vienna.
Even though it wasn't all fun, I can look back on my freshman year with a big smile. I'm not that nervous little girl who didn't want to go to college anymore. I think I grew up - but only a little.

When I take a look around my room I see the traces of freshman year. My backpack looks a little more battered than it did last summer. My wall is now covered in postcards from Vienna. There's a pile of pictures and drawings on my desk from the time I had to tell about my hometown in German. There are cinema tickets for German movies, lists with verbs and even some animal stickers I picked up in a museum for a friend of mine, before I came to my senses and remembered he lives on the other side of the world. There are tons of group selfies with my classmates on my phone, a couple of posts on this blog about all the awesome things I did this year. All those little things tell the story of my freshman year. When I put them all together, the story they tell is a good one :)

In September I'll start my sophomore year, with new subjects, new teachers, a new internship (at my old high school) and the power to boss freshmen around. I'm looking forward to it, but for now I'm just going to sit back, relax and enjoy the summer.

Stay Awesome!