Object Permanence

Sometimes you learn things in class. Go figure. And sometimes (get ready for this one) you remember those things. It's funny the details that stick with you and why. Little tidbits of info here and there that seem to follow you around. I took Educational Psychology last year and I vividly remember learning that part of a young child's development is the discovery that objects exist even when they are out of sight. Object permanence.

Well, I guess I must have missed that essential milestone as an infant. Either that or I underwent a major regression in my cognitive development because I seem to have forgotten that, yes, Hope College does exist even if I cannot see it. For a week now, all of my Hope buddies have been milling around campus, hanging out in the Kletz, throwing snowballs at each other in the Pine Grove, and it's all been happening despite the fact that I have not been there to witness it. Hope goes on without me. And for the rest of this semester, it will keep going on without me. Because apparently, the world does not stop turning when there is a blip in Mary Cantor's routine.

I guess I had forgotten that. Hope College is so big to me, but I am so small to it. It was a college long before it entered my thoughts and it will keep being a college long after it has left them. But it's good. There is just so much in life and Hope is wonderful but there are many other wonderful places in the world and I am lucky because soon I will just have one more thing to add to my list of the things that make my life great. Someone very wise *cough* Allison Fisher *cough* told me, upon returning from her study abroad experience, that one important thing she learned is that there really is life outside Hope College. That it is not the only great thing. That other places can become home too.

I can't wait to learn it for myself.