Ai 
41I 
N AP  P 
 
 

					
				

					
EMBER 
 
BY 
DANA BERCE 
 
Billy Joel said it and Natalie Merchant 
modified it, but the message is the same 
whomever you quote. Our days here are 
numbered and we must cherish these 
times, these days. 
These days, we stay up late cram- 
ming at Memorial and can be found 
typing papers and projects at Helen C. 
at all hours of the day and night. We 
get up early and pound out our stress 
at the SERF and we sleep through 
our classes, nursing our hangovers. 
These days, we try to hang on to 
the past, while we move on into the 
future. 
These days, we hang out at State 
Street Brats and The Flamingo, trying to for- 
get we still have that thesis to finish and 
soon everything will change. 
We toast fond memories of Spring Break 
with our pals in Cancun on the beach and 
skiing in Colorado. 
We try to forget that soon we won't be 
hanging out on the Terrace and heels and 
loafers will soon replace Nikes. 
We try to deny we will ever be one of 
those crazy gray-haired alumni flooding the 
Mad town on game days. 
We, the graduating class of 1997, like 
those before us, promise not to forget all we 
have learned here in Madison. We're not 
talking about classroom material, but the 
things that really matter: the life lessons we 
have endured and the friends we have made. 
We will remember the dorms, where our 
friends were all a footstep away. We will 
remember being thankful for the times when 
we were homesick, when we were just plain 
 
sick and when all we wanted to do was go 
home, our friends were just down the hall. 
We will remember those friends that made 
Madison seem like a home away from home, 
and we will remember when we said "home" 
and it meant Madison for the first time. 
Home now is changing again and we call 
our childhood home our parents' home. It 
is a very different place, looking at it with 
our newly found adult eyes. 
These days, we are searching for jobs, 
searching for schools, searching for the 
answers to the questions that we started ask- 
ing long ago. Why am I here? What am I 
doing? Where am I going? Why? 
These days, we are beginning to feel like 
freshmen all over again. We are wide-eyed, 
full of curiosity and awe at the world. But 
now, we realize that the world is ours for the 
taking, for the repairing, for the making. 
Some of us will make our mark in 
Milwaukee and Chicago, some will go to 
opposite ends of the country- California and 
New York. Some of us don't know where we 
are going, but then we remember the days 
when we first felt like that and we know we 
will be okay. 
These days, we remember how things 
were when we first began and we realize 
how far we've come. 
On graduation day, we will stand proud. 
Side by side our friends, we will stand and 
we will make promises to return. 
In days ahead, we will revisit Madison 
again and again through all the memories, 
because we know these are the days to 
remember. We know these times won't last 
forever. 
 
66 XSTUDENT LIFE 
 
'AY