## Saturday, January 21, 2012

### Seasons of my Life.

Today I flew to Hawaiʻi for the first time without intending to attend school there. It was a rather strange feeling. A moment's reflection revealed one reason for this: namely, that I've spent a pretty good chunk of my life in college, and it's a little disconcerting not to be doing so (even if this is only a break before I continue on in my education). In fact, if we consider each semester to be 4 months long (give or take), and that as of three days ago I was 22 and 3/4 years old, I've spent roughly
$\frac{5\times4\ \text{months}}{22.75\times12\ \text{months}}=\frac{5}{22.75\times3}=\frac{5}{68.25}=7.33\%$
of my life in college.

While that by itself isn't too impressive, if we generalize instead that I've been in college for 4.5 years (which is how I actually phrased the problem to myself), then the fraction becomes
$\frac{4.5\ \text{years}}{22.75\ \text{years}}=19.78\%$
$$-$$ a much higher proportion! And in all honesty, this is closer to how I think of it. That's how long it took me to get my degrees, even if I wasn't taking classes the entire period. So as you can see, having spent nearly a fifth of my life “in college,” I'm bound to feel slightly disoriented upon taking a break from it. Not that I'm complaining, mind you; au contraire, I'm enjoying it! It just remains slightly strange.

P.S. And I made it here just fine, by the way.