Orientation is just around corner. That's pretty literal. It's 3:15am now and it begins at 9am, practically now, and the university is physically around the corner from where I live now. As of today the summer is really over. This whole past week has been the beginning of the end, though.

I've been setting up for orientation with ABTech. I've been excited for the usual traditions: Tech, move-in, BBQs on the porch, meeting freshmen, playfair, etc. I worry that the reason I'm still stuck here doing the same old thing is because I don't know how to let go. I've always hated change and loved doing the same things I've loved before. But things do change. As much as I enjoy every tradition, every traditional thing I do also hurts. I have to consider every time that it might be the last. Also, every time might not be just as good as before.

Even though I was gone, I've still spent all my contiguous summers in Pittsburgh, but maybe this really is the last. I'm too old to care about the freshmen even if I do still want to participate in orientation to help them out and give them a good start like I had. I was looking forward to the beginning of this year, but now I'm not so sure.

Some of my close friends returned to Pittsburgh today. I've learned to get along without them: the year in Boston and this summer. Seeing them now, though, makes me realize that doing it with them, my friends, my brothers, was one of the things I loved about move-in. This year they won't be there, most have left town and the ones that are here have moved on past doing it. Maybe it won't be so great after all.

They came over to my place to watch a movie. Seeing them with their girlfriends reminded me of another thing I'd put behind me for a while. When I'm busy it is easy to forget about girls. It's probably the best thing to do anyway, not worry about something I don't have a lot of control over. Whatever is meant to happen will and that's all there is to it. It was easy at MIT without many close friends and it was easy this summer with few people around, but seeing couples, friends of mine, is hard to ignore. I'm back in the same old place I am every year. This year will be different, he thinks to himself. This year will not be different. The start of a new year and new faces always brought hope. Now I'm older and the students are younger. There's no hope there. That was never the problem anyway, so it is no surprise it was never the solution. The problem is me. More generically, I've noticed a lot of things recently that interest me but that I know I'll never be good at. I don't have the knack, the skills, the sense to make it. I am who I am. There's something spectacular about it, but sometimes I wish I could trade my strength's for someone else's. Even for a minute so that I can know what it is like and understand what I see. The worst part is feeling like an outside and not even being able to imagine what it would be like to not be.

Everything around me is changing. So fast and I can't make it slow down. I'm getting older than I'm ready to be. This year will certainly be filled with the exciting and new. Things change and things stay the same. Some positive and some negetive. All four boxes. What's in store? We'll see, We'll see.