It’s hard to believe that this time last year I was out climbing rocks in the desert and exploring thousand-year-old Native American settlements rather than sitting in a math class listening to a lecture on word problems.

Looking back at the three months I spent living in the American Southwest seems so far away. With the cold of the fall season moving steadily closer, I like to think of how it’s 70 and sunny in Santa Fe right now. The photos I took while out there, while fun to look at, are not all that encouraging when having to write a six-page essay on fundamentalism.

I hear regularly from the group that is currently studying there now and wish that if it wasn’t for my double major and the pile of work I needed to get done before my graduation in May I would have joined in the adventure yet again.

On top of that, I have two friends abroad in Scotland rubbing my face in the fact that while I’m eating microwave dinners they’re eating a plate of haggis. I’ll let it slide as long as they remember to bring me home a bottle of good whiskey.

I had expected the year afer returning to be boring considering how I had spent my time in Santa Fe. To my surprise I got to see one of the whitest winters on record, live through a tornado running rampant through my hometown and watch as floodwaters overtook the state as soon as I returned to campus. Compared to all that, this time now seems almost refreshing.

Oddly enough, the work load this year isn’t entirely what I had expected it to be (knock on wood). My classes have been steady and more often than not enjoyable, and even more importantly I’ve been turning my work in on time too, a good thing for a person ready to be out of the educational system permanently after graduating.

I’m enjoying the progressive change of seasons from summer to fall, which I was unable to experience last year due to my location.  New England this time of year always seems like one giant Norman Rockwell painting to me, and as much as that makes me sound like someone in their 80s I doubt there isn’t a person alive from New England who doesn’t feel similar.

So bring on the new year! The senior classes, impeding un-employment after graduation, and the struggle to make this month’s rent is nothing to me if it means making it to the end. By this time next year I may not need to fantasize about the southwest. I could live there.