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Last Letter for Treasury

April 30, 2018 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Swim

Comments:
Fellas. Ladies. This is it. This is my final log that will be going into the treasury. I know we still have the rest of the week left and there will be logs in the future, but I don’t know when everybody is leaving or whatever so we need to have some kind of cut off. Ready? Here come the words. There’s a lot of them.

I’ll begin with how I even ended up here. I think all of you have heard the story/timeline before but I’ll put it here for posterity:

My college decision process was a very long one. As you all know, I come from a family that obsesses over college more than most others. You see, my Dad went to USC, my mom went to Nebraska, my oldest brother went to ASU, my other older brother went to Georgia Tech, and my younger brother currently goes to Colorado. So when it came down to where I would be attending, I had to go big and out there. I had no interest going somewhere boring like the U of M. And I had to keep the theme of attending somewhere that no one else in my family had attended.

I first was set on going to Boise State. This was all the way back when I was like 10 or 11 during that football season that the Broncos beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl. During that season, I got a BSU t-shirt, sweatshirt, and swim cap (swim cap was from my cousin who met their team at a meet).

A couple of years later some school called Michigan State had a good run in basketball and made it to the NCAA championship. So during that season I got my first MSU t-shirt. But shortly after, I lost interest and when high school came around I began to get more serious about which school I was going to fantasize about attending.

Next, my dream was to attend Stanford. But then I found out that they’re actually racist and I have hated them since. This was during my freshman year. Next came my obsession of going somewhere warm for school.

During my sophomore year I was all about The U. I got this dank orange shirt with a nice U on it (still one of my favorite shirts). I wasn’t even thinking about applying any where else. I needed to go to Coral Gables in Florida. But things change, and my obsession about The U kinda died when my junior year came around and I realized that Miami’s CS program was shit. Side note: I was set on computer science as my college major since I was a freshman in high school. There are fewer things I love more than my computer. I got my very first personal computer in my room when I was just 5 years old.

Anyway, as I got more serious about this whole computer science deal, I was all about prestige. I wanted to go to the best schools for CS. I was deciding between the University of Washington and Cal-Berkeley. There was no other option for me. It had to be one of those. And then after visiting both, I knew I belonged in Seattle at Washington. I would have hated my life more than you know if I had attended Cal.

But then in my senior year I saw a list of college recruiters coming to my high school. They were mostly just from smaller schools in Minnesota, but then I saw one that stood out: Michigan State University. I thought, “Ah hell I guess I’ll apply.” After being admitted and all however, I was still set on Washington. That is, until I visited East Lansing. I knew from the moment I saw the football stadium that this was to be my home. I have said it before but there is not a single University in the world that I would have been happier at. I mean this 100% - if I had applied and gotten accepted by one of those prestigious schools such as Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, etc., I know for sure I would have always just been dreaming of “what if” I had attended somewhere as special as MSU. Never forget sad Princeton guy at our NIRCA Nats party last fall…

So as you know, this running club is a large reason as to why MSU beat out all the others. When I came here, I remember being told to find my Spartan Family, and that is what this club came to be. I’m not sure how much you guys knew about this but I never ever went out in HS. I deadass had no close friends. I mean, there were people I knew and all from my activities n shit, but outside of those activities I never hung out with them. Straight up there was not a single person that I could have felt comfortable with spilling my heart out to as I have with many of you. This year has been my best year at MSU in almost every way you can think, and I owe it more than anything to each of you reading this.

Perhaps you have heard of the 5 Love Languages: Word of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. Far and away, I most identify with Quality Time. Please understand that the time I have spent with each of you means more to me than you will ever know. And in this next month - when I am back on my own and starting a new life - I am sure I will cry (I’m softer than most of you think lol). That is the impact that you people have had on me.

Now I want to close out this log and treasury with one final quote that means a lot to me:
"Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water."