Reverb 10: Day 3 + 4

Hey all,

I have been slacking on my Reverb10 challenge (busy weekend/week so far... but still no excuse I know). This is my attempt to get back on the bandwagon. So, from here one out I'm going to combine a few everyday until I catch up. So here goes...

December 3rd: Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)

Well, to be honest I read this prompt on December 3rd and have just been putting it off because I've had a hard time picking a moment like that. I'd have to pick the night of my graduation from college. Not the actual ceremony. Not sitting waiting for my diploma. Not crossing the stage and shaking the college President's hand. The moment I will forever have etched in my brain is from later that night, at 2am. There is a bar in town that is practically on campus. It's infamous, and is where everyone ends every Friday and Saturday night, so it was obvious that we would ultimately end our 4 years at this bar. This is the moment I picked because for me, it culminated my college experience. As it neared 2:00am, the closing time of the bar, they played the song "closing time" (fitting I know). I will never forget that moment. I stood in a circle of my closest friends. The girls I had lived with for the last four years straight, the people that now knew me best, and we sobbed. It wasn't just us crying though. Everywhere I looked, people stood in circles with their closest friends and held each other as they realized that this was it. It was in that moment that I undoubtedly knew I had picked the perfect college, and had been lucky enough to have the perfect college experience. I will never forget those four years, or that night.

December 4 – Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

Another hard one. I think I cultivated a sense of wonder this year with my curiosity into what I was going to do with myself post-grad. I spent the second semester of my senior year trying to fully understand what kind of job and career I would like as I entered the real world. This led me to a lot of online research, article-reading, twitter-chat participating, and just a lot of thinking. Though I have my first job...have I ended that sense of wonder in my career search? Nope, not even close.