Flashback Friday: Freshman Year of College

Happy Friday everyone! I often don't have a chance to post on Fridays, but I really want to start getting better about it. I can never think of anything to write because I'm so exhausted and all I can think is, "thank god it's Friday!!!!" Amber started today doing "Flashback Friday" which I've seen on a lot of blogs, and she is flashing back to each of her 4 years of college. Hers makes a bit more sense since it's 4 weeks til she's done with college, but I am closing in on 4 years SINCE college, so I figure, why not? It's fun to reflect on things and hopefully you guys will enjoy it too. I may do more than 4 posts to cover all 4 years.

Let's start with freshman year. I decided to go to Boston College, which is only about a 30 minute drive from my parent's house. I wasn't particularly against going far away, I just really liked BC and it happened to be close. I think I had some insecurity about staying so close to home at homes. I felt like I "should" be moving far away and be more independent so I tried to restrict myself in how often I went home, etc. In hindsight it was pretty ridiculous and I hope none of my college readers do that to themselves. Be where you want to be, when you want to be there, don't let other people's ideas of what college should be limit you.

Freshman year, to be honest, was very hard. It was fun to live on my own and have my own rules, but I was used to a lot of privacy at home and I had basically none at college. I found some friends, but BC is a culture of off-campus parties and bars that are very strict about IDs, so finding things to do was a challenge. My cousin had an off campus apartment and she was so nice about telling me when they were having parties but for some reason it was difficult to organize everyone.

I will say though, my friends and I did take advantage of Boston. We did a lot of Newbury Street and Copley shopping. We went out to dinner and ice cream in the city. We were not afraid of the T. At the time I thought that it was the "wrong" thing to be doing (I should've been out partying more!), but when I think back to that year my best memories were with my best friends enjoying Boston.

I also seemed to make up for my lack of serious partying at my own school whenever I visited my high school friend's at their colleges or when they came to visit me. Oops :)

Some of the best things that happened freshman year included meeting a few friends that I am still good friends with now. I got along amazingly well with my roommate, which does NOT happen to everyone! Our room was a total comfort zone for me in a school that definitely was not. I always felt like I could tell Ash what I was thinking and she would just be like "YOU TOO?! I was totally thinking that!" Also freshman year I met Katie (you may remember I was her MOH in her wedding last summer), we got along well from the beginning too, although our really close friendship we still have today develops a bit later in the story...

Both Katie and Ash are in my wedding this summer.
Other great memories from freshman year include:

Going to hockey games...

Decorating our door for every holiday...

and dressing up for an 80s party with Gerry (also still a good friend of mine)...

It's funny really how one of the tougher years of my life still has so many memories attached. If only I hadn't been so worried about what I "should" have been doing, I probably would've been a lot happier with what I was doing.

How was your freshman year of college? What are your favorite memories from that time? What was the hardest part?