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From Bloomfield to Beantown:
First Year, First Impressions
By Kristin Demorest
September 2002
 Well,
I’m finally here. After 18 years of living at home, 5 years of
lacrosse, 15 years of school and a lot of money spent on tuition, I
am a freshman at Harvard College. Yikes! A freshman in college? To use
an over-used cliché, it seems like just yesterday that I was
a little kid. I used to tell everyone that I wanted to go to Harvard
when I was little, and now I’m actually here, sitting in a dorm
room wondering how I will ever make it to Thanksgiving break-- the first
time I will get to go home. It’s my fourth night, and I must admit,
the homesickness has set in big time. If anyone ever tells you that
you won’t be even a little bit homesick when you go to college,
they don’t know what they are talking about or they are lying
to you. But then again, I am especially close to my family, so it could
be different for me than it is for some other people.
I think once lacrosse and real classes (not just placement tests)
start, I will probably be fine. Right now there is too much free time
for me to realize how much I miss home. I’m not one who’s
real big on a ton of free time, so I am actually looking forward to
getting things underway. A while back I thought I would try to take
easier classes the first semester to get adjusted, but in my usual (and
probably stupid) fashion, I now want to take hard and challenging ones.
And work a job. And do that lacrosse thing, too. It’ll be a busy
first semester.
We have our first team meeting in a few days, and I’m excited
to finally meet the whole team. The players I have met seem cool, as
do my coaches, so I think I’m really going to like it. Whenever
I wonder why in the world I wanted to go 750 miles away from home, I
remind myself of the fact that playing Division I lacrosse has been
my dream, my goal, and my passion for the last 4 years. No one will
ever be able to take that away from me. Even though many doubted that
I would make it, it was my hard work that proved them wrong in the end.
If I have anything to say about it, I will continue to prove them wrong
throughout my college career.
Although I’m not exactly sure what to expect with practice, I
feel that I couldn’t have done more to get ready this summer.
I followed the running schedule religiously, I lifted with a trainer,
I threw against the wall, I played summer league, I went to camp, but
most importantly I discovered how much fun it can be when you just play
when you’re in the net, rather than worrying about save totals
and goals against. That was one thing I definitely didn’t realize
in high school. If I could change anything about my high school career,
that would be it. But you can’t change the past, you can only
learn from it. From now on, I will make sure to always try to keep the
game in perspective. After all, if it’s not fun, it’s not
worth doing. And I plan on having a lot of fun these next four years
(once I get used to everything)!
A Glance at our Columnist: Kristin Demorest
Kristin Demorest
Harvard University, Class of 2005
Hometown: Birmingham, Michigan
High School: Seaholm High School
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