I can't count the number of times I have heard the phrase: "College is the four best years of your life, so you better enjoy it." Or "Don't graduate, it's the worst thing ever."

Whether it's senior citizens whose days of all-nighters have long since passed, or the just-graduated or still hung-over seniors, everyone seems to want to throw this advice at me.

And every time I hear either note of "wisdom," it makes me cringe. Frankly, it's extremely annoying and makes me more than just a little peeved.

I mean really, what kind of a thing is it to say to someone that from here on out it only gets worse. It's telling someone that there's nothing to look forward to so they might as well just give up now.

Capiche. Finito.

Enjoy eight semesters and then jump off a bridge or get a prescription for Prozac because all good times end here.

I'm not going to deny the fact that yes, next to maybe my early childhood years, college has been one of the most enjoyable times of my life. But I absolutely refuse to except that this is it; that this is as good as it gets.

Not to mention that it's hardly a good attitude to go into anything in life assuming that it won't be as beneficial or enjoyable as something before it was. If my humble 20 years of life experience has taught me anything, it's that whether it is for better or worse, things rarely turn out the way you expect them to.

I prefer to believe that aside from high school-- which was four years of pure, bloody hell -- every phase of life has both its ups and downs.

If I think back to childhood and remember how badly I wanted to be a "grown-up," -- a term I am still trying to understand -- and how it seemed that everything would be so much easier once I got to that stay-up-till-whenever, drink coffee and pretentiously-stress-about-everything stage of life. But as we all know, the truth is nothing ever becomes easier because with each year it becomes 10 times more complicated.

But the way I see it, discovering and searching for ways to experience delight in every age and phase of life is part of the fun.

Maybe I am extremely young and naive and just too stubborn to except that the best is what is here and now. But if that's the case then it's pretty grim.

While I might look back on this 10 years down the line and curse myself for not treasuring and embracing every single moment of my experience here at Penn State, I hope that I will have had many great times long after Happy Valley has faded from recent memory.

Who's to say that my best years won't be my 30s or 40s, or any years beyond those for that matter?

As I watch my friends graduate, I do often worry about the phase of life when the comfort of orderly partying and glorious craziness of Penn State ends and reality sets in.

I'll leave all those anxieties for later. For now, I desperately want to believe that the best is yet to come.