There's a photo in my senior high school yearbook that makes me pause.

In it, I see a girl with years before her, a life of happiness and love ahead of her.

Lauren sat next to me in physics class senior year, and while I was never close enough to call her a friend, her genuine kindness was evident. She never talked about herself unless asked, never bragged, never gossiped. Furthermore, she actually understood physics and was willing to explain its intricacies to me.

A bright future awaited her with a smart mind and an acceptance to the University of Virginia in hand. Then, two months before graduation, Lauren found out she had a rare bone cancer. Surgery and chemotherapy followed. As she walked across the stage on crutches to receive her diploma, everyone clapped.

Over the summer, I found Lauren's blog -- the one she had started keeping years before her cancer diagnosis.

That blog is now but a lasting shrine of her life. Less than two years after graduating high school, Lauren passed away. Before she died, Lauren had a fresh start -- she began taking classes at Virginia in fall 2005 and continued until her cancer resurfaced early in 2006.

I wonder how Lauren would answer the question we are often posed: If you could go back in time, what would you change about your life?

The fact is we cannot go back; we cannot correct our mistakes. We can only forge ahead, learning from our past.

Each year of college is a new chance to learn from those past mistakes. If your GPA suffered from excessive partying, you can do better this year. If your social life suffered as a result of excessive studying, you can change that as well.

College is all about compromise -- splitting time between work, school and friends. To live life to the fullest, you have to be willing to make sacrifices in each area to appease the others. No one thing is the end-all-be-all of college -- or life for that matter.

I have one year left at Penn State, and the time I have spent has gone by in a flash. I'm entering the real world soon -- another fresh start -- and can't help but to reflect on how far I've come. I've gone from a freshman who didn't know what she wanted to do with her life, to a senior with a clear goal -- to become a journalist. I've gone from shy to outgoing, from never leaving my apartment to staying away from it until awkward hours of the night.

As I try to reflect on the year to come, I have certain goals in my mind -- the last few things I want to accomplish in my college career, but I also try to remember that no one can plan for life's uncertainties.

If there's anything that Lauren's story can teach us, it is that life is fleeting at best; that every day is a fresh start. We don't need to harp on our mistakes, only learn from them and look to the future. And enjoy every day.