I know you'd rather we were dancing...

And now, I'm glad I didn't know
the way it all would end,
the way it all would go.
Our lives are better left to chance.
I could have missed the pain,
but I'd have had to miss the dance.
- Garth Brooks, "The Dance"

I know I usually close with a song lyric, and I will close this post with another, but I have been so struck lately (as in tonight) by the truth of this refrain. Allow me to tell you a story.

Three years ago, I was beginning my senior year in high school, taking AP Physics. Columbia High School Physics has never been known to be great, and this year was no exception. I was expecting very little, and indeed, that is what I got. I don't think I could have expected all that much more without being disappointed, but I do think I could have been more positive about the whole thing. Alas, I made it through the class, extremely excited on the last day that I was DONE. Then I came to college.

As a Chemistry major, Physics was required - two semesters. I started with it immediately because I already had the calculus credit from high school, and I honestly just wanted it over with. And so my dance began. In a whirlwind of a first semester, I dropped my education certification in favor of the ability to be in the honors program and potentially complete a Physics minor. By the middle of last semester, I had declared a double major. I don't think I can explain how incredible Le Moyne has been in helping me get to a place that I love.

This year begins my junior year. One of the things I always remember my high school teacher saying was that once you got to third level physics, there aren't any numbers anymore. I will wave goodbye to them, I suppose.

I could have skipped high school physics all together. I probably still would have been a Chemistry major, and I would probably still have come to Le Moyne. Which means I would have still taken the same Physics. I can't say that I would have had such a dance if I hadn't know what it was to feel that pain.

I have a friend, also named Rachel, who switched her major from Chemistry to Biology, citing that she realized the reasons she thought she liked Chemistry were really the reasons she liked Biology. I am thinking I may have a similar problem. Perhaps the reasons I think I like Chemistry are really the reasons I like Physics? We shall see...

Currently reading: The Hundred Secret Senses. Not much to say...

Listening to: "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something. "You say that we've got nothing in common, no common ground to start from, and we're falling apart...and I said 'What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?'" <3

- Rachel