Time does fly. Doesn’t September seem so far away? Yet paradoxically, the weather in Walla Walla seems to come full circle. At the beginning of the year, it’s shirtless and sunshine on Ankeny and at the end of the year it’s shirtless, sunshine (hopefully) and nostalgia.   Now, just in conversations with friends, it seems like everyone’s reflecting upon the past year.   What have I done?   What did I miss out on?   What can I do to make up for lost time?   I never expected the end of my sophomore year to be an art project, two tests and a paper away.

The thing with time is that you never get it back; it slips through your fingers the harder you try to hold on to it. It ticks and tocks when you want it to go by faster and it disappears in a haze of laughter until you realize it’s three a.m.

Adults, not just people 18-and-up but the people with real jobs, always told me that time passes faster and faster when you get older and I never really knew why until now.   It’s because they don’t get surprised as often as we do.

At the end of last year, I was excited to be done with freshman year because sophomore year loomed on the horizon. Being a first-year meant always being surprised and amazed by the parties, the workload, and just being away from home, by yourself. Sometimes, your surprise reflects your naiveté but we’re all pretty quick on the uptake.

Now, being a sophomore means knowing where the off-campus houses are, which parties are fun   and which aren’t or what classes are good which aren’t. It’s about actually making decisions that matter, like declaring a major or study/party abroad.

I can’t even imagine how seniors must feel after three and a half or even four years in Walla Walla. I guess nothing fazes them anymore except an impending diploma.

But, maybe a way to slow time down, or at least our perception of it, is to be surprised more often. It’s in that very moment of surprise that you forget what time it is.   But by nature, being surprised isn’t something you intend, it just happens to you. It’s like meeting people for the first time because at that moment, they are full of surprises.   If you’ve already seen their facebook, then some measure of that capacity to be surprised is irretrievably lost.

Now, when was the last time you were really surprised? I think sometimes it’s easy to fall into a routine. After all, since middle school, teachers have been giving us study planners to write down homework in. But now, we fill our planner not with homework, but our life.   Meeting at noon?   Check.   Coffee with a friend at 3:30?   Check.   Work at 5?   Check.   Well, all these checks reduce life to a series of actions.   It’s a series of motions we go through each day until we sleep at night.

What we’re faced with is the challenge of how to make the last few weeks meaningful and memorable. It’s to live without expectation or prediction.   It’s in those moments of spontaneity that you grow.

So surprise someone.