Somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond/any experience. . ., E.E. Cummings begins his poem.

It's much like how I recall the past five years at Penn State and how I see the great beyond that looms large ahead.

Coming out of high school, I remember the sheer terror I felt in resisting to take on the challenge.

I thought that I would die, that life as I had known it would cease to exist and I would never be the same. I was right about two of those things, but never in the way I had thought.

Every new path I have taken is not without resistance and fear. I have a horribly difficult time with change — I can't eat, sleep or think, and worst of all, a gnawing, empty void pulsates indefinitely in the pit of my stomach like the black hole that I am sure is waiting to swallow me.

But each time change has come, it has made me smarter, stronger and given me even sweeter gifts than the last — though each process is not necessarily any easier than the first.

I think of studying for a summer in Mexico, moving away from home and living on my own for the first time, and accepting a last-minute internship last summer in Staunton, Va.

I would have never known some amazing roommates or learned I had the ability to assimilate to a new culture or place.

But that's not to say I adjust to new people or situations perfectly. Sometimes I get scared and falter, or I don't realize what I have until it's too late.

. . .in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near. . .

Quite often I could never understand the impact someone or thing had on me until it was gone. It wasn't until my friend moved to L.A. that I felt the void of his inspirational friendship.

And now that only six days of classes and publication days of The Daily Collegian remain, I see the door closing to one of the most important institutions in my life. I've worked at this newspaper for eight semesters and learned a lot about journalism but I've also learned more from some of the dearest friends I've found in life — Wunschey, Stacey, Dave, Jonny, Kelly, Tim and Tricia — and had an incredible amount of fun with them too.

There's no time for regrets now. Although I always said I never wanted to have any, I could wish for things that never were in college — like making the Dean's list — but I'm looking forward now to possible regrets I will not have.

Instead of a black hole that is waiting to swallow me into nothingness, there are cities, mountains and deserts calling to me. And they will not consume me.

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals/the power of your intense fragility: whose texture/compels me with the color of its countries,/rendering death and forever with each breathing

I shudder — knowing it is unnecessary — to think of moving to a new place. And I still wrestle with trying to figure out what is most important — people, place or profession?

Perhaps it's a combination of some sort, but when I think of the strength I've gained through the years, it's because of the people I've known.

I don't see roots as being those things that tie us down to a certain place. My roots are the ties I've made with people I love, and they'll travel with me on whatever road I take.

I've always hated when people say, "Maybe our paths will cross one day." That implies a temporary intersection of people heading in different directions. I realize that will happen more often than not, that people change and usually there's no one else on the same course of life as yourself.

But to the precious ones I've known in the past five years, I prefer looking forward to the day our paths will meet again. While I don't know what life has in store for us, we are young, and there's a lot of life left to be lived. I can't wait to share those experiences with you when we meet again one day.

. . .only something in me understands. . . nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

There is no way to describe this college experience and how everyone I've met along the way has impacted me.

Just like a raindrop, each one is individual and unique. While E.E. Cummings compared his lover's hands to the tear-like shapes, I compare the joys and growing pains of life to them.

I think I'm ready to be soaked by the downpour.