Four years. Four years has passed by so quickly. Four years ago, I was the cocky, chubby girl who thought she could take on anything. A girl who thought she'd end up in academia and do research and professor for the rest of her life. A girl who hated the city she came from and did everything in her power to get out. A girl who wanted to become fluent in Spanish, study abroad in Spain, possibly major in Political Science and Computer Science and become an activist in Berkeley.

Four Years later. Four years later I have become a Applied Math major, went to study in Taiwan, and spent two years studying Chinese and can understand it better than I could ever understand Spanish. I have learned to accept my own heritage and be proud of who I am and where I come from. I have learned to appreciate the people in my life, and love my friends. I have become more socially adept, more secure with myself, and become some what obsessed with exercise and eating right.

In the here and now, I have created a community for myself. A comfortable bubble that is all my own. With most things in life that I want. Yet, within a few weeks all of this will completely pass me by. All my friends will be going their separate ways, some to grad schools, some to work in other places, some returning home, and what not. I have a summer left but the Berkeley that I know and love will no longer exist. It is the people that have created this community for me, these people who are leaving to pursue their own lives.

At first I failed to accept this, then I became bitter, and now I am not sure how I feel. I am left to pursue my own path, yet I am not completely sure what it is that I am seeking. I know however, that after these few weeks my life will completely change. I have been through the college transition, I am walking into the real world. I'm not sure if I'm ready. Whether I stay in the bay area, or superficially stay here, or move back to Los Angeles, and how that will affect me I'm not sure.

I suppose it is that my world doesn't feel so stable anymore. At the same time, knowing this I feel oddly free. I can do anything... I can take time to travel, I can take up whatever job that I want to take up. I'm free to explore and take on the world. It's an odd feeling. With so many options what do I do with myself?

I feel as though I have everything and nothing in the palm of my hands right now. It feels almost like a dream, completely surreal.

It's a weird feeling I have right now. It's a weird place I'm in.

Perhaps this is my precursor to the real world and I have begun searching for that sense of home that we all so desperately desire to find.