Treasure the moments

If individual moments define our lives, then for us, the class of 2005, one such moment began at 8:46 a.m., September 11, 2001, just a few weeks into our fresh college careers. I don't know about you, but I remember where I was -- smack dab in the first month of my freshman year microeconomics class, mouth gaping open, lips trying to form the words, "Is this a movie we're watching in here today?" \nIt wasn't. But it was a moment, one major defining point in my whole college world. And it took until my senior year to realize it.\nLately I've been having the conversations we all have at the end of an important period in our lives: playing the "Do you remember when..." game, recounting successes and failures and looking to the future outside of IU's famous Sample Gates. But 9-11 has come up again and again. I just spent an hour recounting that day with friends Saturday, and each person had a memory associated with that period of time that was a unified, yet completely personal take on the incident.\nWe remember as a group, and we remember as individuals. It's hung over us all four years of our time at IU. Some of us lost friends or family members, broadened our perspectives on the world and even decided to change our entire course of study as a result. No one was unchanged. And no one simply doesn't remember. I have one friend who changed his major from Spanish to political science that very day, he claims. Another, I lost back to her hometown a month after 9-11 -- she wanted to be with her family, she said.\nWe all changed, somehow, in some way. It was that kind of moment.\nI can't think of many other moments that carry such significance for a group of people thrown together on a southern Indiana campus. But maybe you remember when the men's basketball team made it all the way to the NCAA championship game in 2002, with wild crowds pulsing through Kirkwood Avenue after each game and elation gripping the campus. \nI have a succinct memory of this time period too -- March 21, 2002, the night that IU beat Duke in the Sweet 16 round. I was taking a chemistry test -- horribly, horribly scheduled right on top of gametime -- and anticipation crackled through the air the entire time. Radio waves did too. One AI proctoring the test had a tiny transistor radio up next to his ear, and he kept writing the score on the blackboard after every point scored. As the scores climbed, the pencils moved faster. I failed the test; I'm certain of it. But we won together, laughed together, screamed and cried and slapped hands together. Again, we were unified as a campus, yet filled with our own personal, individual memories of what we'd experienced.\nAgain we changed. We remember.\nWhen you think back on your years at IU, I'm sure you have tons of moments like these, moments that united you with your friends, that defined who you are and who you'll become and fused you with your campus. For me, these were the biggest ones, the points in time where I felt the closest to my school, my friends and my neighbors. I hope that you have many moments that define your time here. I look forward to the next.