December at Colgate is always a hectic hellfire of exams, papers, projects and too many social obligations. It’s funny, because December never feels like the holiday season at Colgate; I’m always too busy to realize that Christma is sneaking up on me and get downright bamboozled when January hits me with a new calendar year. This Colgate December is a little different, though. I’m a senior, and therefore much more sentimental than I’ve been since my senior year of high school. Not to mention, we’re ending a decade this December 31, and what a decade it’s been.

The 2010’s have been nothing if not wild. If you’re a student at Colgate today, you came of age in quite possibly the craziest decade of human history. Just think, ten years ago, you were in middle school, listening to Justin Bieber’s baby voice on the radio and probably watching Glee! (at least that’s what I was doing). Taylor Swift still had curly hair. The country was recovering from one of the most disastrous financial collapses in history, but you didn’t quite get it because you were 12 and 20 dollars was still a lot of money to you. Obama was president, so no one was flinching at news headlines, nor questioning their validity. 

It would be impossible to encapsulate the last decade or my feelings about it in a single commentary piece, so I’m just going to say that I’m grateful to be ending it at Colgate. This place, its own microcosm of society and its myriad problems, is a comforting buffer against the ever-increasing entropy of the rest of the world. I find comfort walking through cold, snowy days peaking out of my parka to see the familiar faces walking through the Quad, down Persson Steps, down Willow Path. It’s nice to know I share this weird, tiny world with friends and strangers, and that when the clock strikes midnight we will together say goodbye to the most formative decade of our lives, and perhaps the century.