On Monday night it had just stopped raining when I began driving down Main Street. I had driven this particular stretch of road several times before, but because of the recent rain, everything around me appeared to be glistening brightly, and the lights on the Kentucky Theatre were blinking on and off bright as ever.

I looked up and down the street and realized that as my time at UK is dwindling down to an end, so is my time as a Lexingtonian.

I have spent my entire life in this city — that suddenly looked brand new in the rain — and now it was time to say goodbye.

I, along with hundreds of my closest friends, will be packing my bags and leaving to start a new life in a new place.

Tears stung my eyes as I realized that come August, I would no longer be walking down the streets of Main — going to the Regal Theatre to catch the latest indie flick, or running to Hugos to down tequila shots on Friday night or stopping at Sam’s Hot Dog Stand on the way to work.

I will no longer be a 21-year-old undergraduate student who believes she can get away with anything, so long as she smiles. No, that girl will be replaced with a 21-year-old law student who will be trying to make it in a competitive, fast-paced world.

As May 8 draws closer, I am remembering to savor every moment as I walk around campus and up and down the halls of Whitehall Classroom Building.

I never thought I would miss the building that some say resembles a prison or the lectures that take place inside of it, but I will.

Somehow, everything that I complained about these past four years — The parking! The professors! — seems like nothing more than a distant and nostalgia-clouded memory.

The four years I spent at UK have undoubtedly been the best four years of my life, and I am becoming slightly terrified as I begin to imagine my life without belonging here as a student.

However, I do know that UK has prepared me well, and I know that more memories will await me in North Carolina.

But I’ll never forget my time here at this school and the memories I have surrounding this campus.

So, farewell class of 2011, and may we all take time in the coming weeks to look around and appreciate what UK means to us. I hope it looks just as beautiful to you as it did to me.

Katherine George

English senior