Each Stage in life brings new choices

The first few weeks at SFU were difficult. Scrambling to get from class to class, trying to concentrate at lectures with 300 other students and being pressured with formerly unseen loads of homework, I tried to keep up with university life. Alien teaching methods confused me as lectures were long and classes hectic.

Study groups and internet tutors were life savers. New classes bought on unexpected work loads, three times my usual amount. Segregated from old friends and old partying habits, I felt my life to be very boring yet filled constantly with chaos and homework.

The summer post-secondary was awesome. Parties, Mexico and parties in Mexico filled my vacation. My friends and I were well past "carefree"; we partied without fretting and acted without thinking. Unfortunately, I had become accustomed to this life and staying at home every night was, at first, very challenging. My new responsibility to school made turning down people when they asked for me to go out with them difficult. I was a "social butterfly", but had clipped my own wings.

Now destines to live without freedom, a prisoner of my own ambitions, I pushed all pretentious thoughts out of my mind and focused on the task at hand - school. I thought that if I could only get my degree, life would be so much easier.

With concentrating on school in mind, I set out to achieve my goal. Studying hard and cut off from a life of parties and carefreeness, I decided to attain, excitingly for the first time, a personal goal I had set for myself.

Nearing the end of my first semester at SFU, I finally got in a groove; I no longer felt the need to waste my time with endless partying, for my time was far more useful being used wisely for constructive purposes. Achieving high marks so far, I am sure I can sustain my grades with my new-found dedication.