I've been terrified of the Willard Building for a good two and half years.

It happened suddenly, on a sunny Thursday before finals week spring 2003. I was decked out in summer gear: dress, sunglasses, flip-flops and an iced frappucino in hand. I was early for class, but I had a plan to constructively waste my time. I was going to get a newspaper and work up my vitamin D. The Willard preacher was having a day off, people were outside chatting, and I started up the steps determined to make this plan happen.

And then I had to be myself and screw things up. I fell going up the stairs. But hey, it happens right? And I wasn't willing to let anything spoil my composure. I marched in, got a newspaper, went up a flight of stairs, when I realized I was bleeding.

That sunny day ended with seven stitches on my right knee, a week before I could call my first year over.

It seems like I fell up those stairs only yesterday. Yet here I am, two and a half years later, ready to call this the end of my college experience.

When I left my home, Cyprus, a sun-drenched, Mediterranean island in August 2002, I was bursting with energy and excitement. Pennsylvania, U.S.A. was as far away from home as I could get.

And then I arrived and discovered this middle-of-nowhere town with two main streets and an engulfing campus.

This was Happy Valley and I was not that happy to be here.

The instant-made friendships I was expecting to make didn't happen as instantly as I had anticipated. I had many acquaintances but no one I could confidently call my friend.

But by the end of my first year, I definitely had friends to help me out of the University Health Services and laugh at my clumsiness. It took me by surprise, but without realizing it, I had made friends with whom I could be silly, stupid, funny, miserable and happy.

Soon I became more than just a face in the crowd, and the 40,000-student campus began to shrink to a very small community.

I began to recognize the people taking the same path to class every day. I met friends of friends of friends and then the Penn State community soon became much smaller.

My memories began to take shape not in memories of the places I was going, but the people I was with. All I remember now is laughing too much and laughing too hard.

Penn State suddenly began to take shape in memories of going to plays, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, hookah lounges, writing stupid poems about each other, baking, tanning (the natural way, take note), watching movies, playing in the snow, skipping class, traveling and laughing almost through all of it.

It sounds like the memory everyone else has of college, but it feels unique now because it's mine.

My three and a half years here have been peppered with good friends, each one different. Penn State became a Happy Valley because of the good friends I found.

In my three and a half years here, I have lost and gained many friends, because this tiny town is one of transition -- people come and go.

And finally it's time for me to go. In my time here, I have been incessantly pushing the fast-forward button, but now I'm ready to hit play and enjoy my way out of here.

Fortunately, I always have the Willard scar on my knee to remind what a great experience it's been.