Project: Life As We Live It

Just prior to leaving for college and going our separate ways, my high school friends and I began worrying that attending different universities across the United States might disconnect us. So we decided to start a project to ensure that we remained a part of each other’s lives. Inspired by the popular YouTube channel, Our2ndLife, we created our own channel, agreeing that any type of video of would be acceptable, whether it be a roommate moment or a short documentary for a creative film class. Not only would such an endeavor allow us to capture our silly college years as a collective timeline memoir, it would assure us a portal through which to keep up with each other’s kaleidoscopic lives at nine different universities spanning across New York, California, Illinois, Texas, Massachusetts, and Michigan. We imagined that, in future years, we could look back at our younger selves and be able to see how much we have grown since “the good ol’ days.”

However, the project turned out to be easier said than done. More than halfway through the first semester of college, we have yet to take the next step–not one second of footage has been posted and, despite each of us having enjoyed an assortment of first-year experiences on our respective campuses, our eagerly anticipated Life As We Live It channel remains pitifully barren. Nevertheless, I (call me a diehard optimist) remain hopeful that there is still plenty of time for my friends and me to document myriad freshman-year memories. Despite it feeling like a lot of trouble right now, I believe the fruits of our efforts will, later in life, become priceless to us. Fortunately, we have been keeping up the other part of our nostalgia project: writing letters to each other, the old fashioned way, because, even for digital natives like us, texting and Facebook messaging is just too instant!