"Waiting on A World to Change"

And so the song goes....

me and all my friends
we're all misunderstood
they say we stand for nothing and
there's no way we ever could
now we see everything that's going wrong
with the world and those who lead it
we just feel like we don't have the means
to rise above and beat it

so we keep waiting

It seems like I have been doing a lot of waiting lately. Waiting for spring break, waiting to take my mid-term exams, waiting to see my family, waiting for prince charming to come along, waiting to reconnect with my friends, waiting to get a job, waiting to grow up and enter "the real world".
Yet as I watch the clock go tick-tock and as time passes by, I've realized lots of things about myself.
I am NOT the kid that I was 4 years ago...Actually, I am not even the girl that I was 3 years ago, nor am I the young lady that I was last year.
I was never sure that I would fit in at Penn. I came from a modest, upper middle class suburb, I had nothing on the elite crowd that flocked this campus. I wasn't super athletic, and surely not super popular. I wasn't one of the "beautiful people", but I also wasn't one of the slutty ones. I used to be the fat kid, it wasn't until the beginning of highschool that I learned how to really wear makeup, properly.
Before coming to college, the idea of drinking obscene amounts of red liquid from trash barrels at fraternity parties seemed absurd, coffee's addictive properties had not yet taken hold of me, nor had the realization hit that I wasn't always going to get the grade that I *thought* I deserved.
But alas, here I am, four years-a few bad choices-more than a few amazing friends-hundreds of hilarious stories- a few heartbreaks-a few less than stellar grades-and a few, okay, more than a few hangovers later.
It's weird. Now I spend more time in the hospital than I do in the classroom. About 25 hours a week, actually. Yet, what I have learned there never ceases to amaze me. Although I'm grateful for my education here at Penn (both in the classroom and on the social scene), some of what I have learned recently has given me a new perspective. I'm choosing to be a nurse, or as some of you like to call it, "ass-wiper," "vomit cleaner," "shot giver," :Fuc**** crazy person"...but I'm up for the challenge. Just as I wondered if I could ever fit in here at Penn, I sometimes wonder if I am ready for the real world (and let me remind you, the ER in NYC is way more of the real world than the popped collar, ipod wearing, BMW driving culture that I have spent the last 4 years living in). On the same note though, it has definitely been comfortable here...most common "offenses": showing up to class hungover, collar unevenly popped, being seems without IPOD on locust walk, breaking ones cellphone over the weekend during some adventure.
But I digress...Are we ready for the real world? I am going to have to go out on a limb and say yes. But not because of what we have learned in class, but because of what we have done/seen/engaged in out of class. Some of us have gotten our "ya-ya's" out, some of us have discovered the world beyond social awkwardness (some, unfortunately, still haven't- but there is hope?!?!), some of us have worked hard enough to earn our place as a "grown up" who knows how to work AND play hard, and some of us have just met enough people to get us connected wherever the future road leads....
So I dedicate this post goes out to all of us. Here's to everything we have done, and everything we still hope to do. There really is no need to wait for the "World to change" because we are the ones leading the way. Keep on trekking, never stop being who you are, never forget where you have come from, but most of all never loose sight of where you want to go.