Throughout the last four years, a lot of important things on this campus have changed. One of these big changes is the removal of the chicken tender pita from the grill’s menu.
The chicken tender pita was one of the most popular items at the old grill in the Memorial Union. As much as we appreciate the newly built, fancy looking café, a lot of us miss the delicious, crunchy taste of the chicken tender pita.
Although the new grill sometimes helps us satisfy our appetite by serving chicken tender wraps as the daily special, it can never taste as good as the original chicken tender pita from the old grill did.
The story of the chicken tender pita reminds us of our old times, of how many memories we had in this school and most importantly of the people that have been by our sides. Without them we could never have has enjoyed the chicken tender pita as much as we did. The people I want to mention here – besides the cooking staff at the Grill – are our parents, professors and friends.
First, I would like to thank our parents for giving us financial and emotional support. Without our parents’ financial support, we wouldn’t be able to afford a chicken tender pita, and more importantly, we wouldn’t have made it to Lawrence – a remarkable educational institution.
Thanks for always having our backs through the ups and downs. Thanks for constantly checking up on how we are doing – even though we sometimes turned you down. Remember that there were times you called us on weekends and we said we could not talk for long because we were “busy working on a project with our classmates” or “studying for an upcoming exam.”
We probably lied to you at that time. But, the point here is that we have always noticed and appreciated how much you care about us. And we would like to thank you for your tremendous support.
My parents always told me to make goals for myself. My goals kept changing as I accumulated more experiences throughout my college life. In my freshman year, my goal was to be acquainted with as many people on campus as I could, and to be present at most of the parties.
I guess I was young at the time and wasn’t sure what kind of goals my parents were talking about. But as I grew older, it became apparent to me that there were better, more worthy goals in life.
Lawrence’s liberal arts education completely changed my perspective about life and helped me become a better person. You know, when you were little you and your friends had little talks about your dream jobs – while my friends wanted to become professors, doctors or the president, I was different. I wanted to devote my life to serving in an ice-cream shop.
I thank Lawrence for changing that na’ve dream of mine and giving me more realistic passions. After graduating from here, I believe that I have the ability to work in a much more professional environment. Such as the White House, World Bank or Target.
Or maybe I can even become an entrepreneur and open a corporation that produces ice cream to be sold nationwide.
Finally, to all of the seniors, we should be proud of ourselves for fleeing from Lawrence successfully. In my four years here, I have lost a lot of friends who for many reasons could not continue their education here, and one of the most common reasons was the difficulty of Lawrence’s academics. So you guys should be proud of yourselves because you survived Lawrence’s challenging education.
I was very afraid as my graduation approached because I felt like I was getting old and still did not have a specific plan. But you know what, the rest of our lives are just starting and we are still young.
Don’t regret the things that you think you should have done or should have tried harder for. Don’t be jealous of the freshmen for being young and having the right to act silly. Don’t be jealous of the underclassmen because they can enjoy the new campus center for a longer period of time.
We know that the joy they have today is the result of our sacrifice, our endurance of one full academic year of loud and disturbing construction. We actually had more privileges than the freshmen do now because they will never have the opportunity to take a bite of that most awesome food: the original chicken tender pita.
They will never witness and experience as much change on the Lawrence campus as we did. We are still young and ingenious, and with our innovative minds we will certainly be able to take advantage of the many opportunities that are coming to us or even create our own opportunities.
Senior class reflections
