Lucky stars have just seared my shoulders and made my hair frizzy again. In one of my last classes at Kent State, a teacher gave me a break when I got depressed thinking I was in too much of a point deficit to get an A.

You see, I intended to write this to tell you about the smoky mirror that is college. To implore you to get out from the mental concrete walls. To ask you to get to know your professors for the sake of getting to know your professors. To say that they can be part of your support group. To tell you that they’re not just your “references.” To make us remember that they’re people too, who came in just as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as we once did. To have you want to discontinue this relationship of being strangers with them. And most importantly, to stop the cycle of poor social and mental education that is caused by dubbing the whole system a hellhole and running like crazy with what you did get out of it.

College may be about developing mentality. One that works for the most people, in the best possible way. So when I got to the Showcase for Haiti relief benefit, the topic in my mind really changed to thinking of a world tied together.

At first I was disturbed that everyone around me was so dressed up. But underneath all that, wasn’t there someone who was all dressed up? Someone who was hurting? Someone who focused on getting it together to represent the spirit of picking up and doing the best we can?

Wasn’t I just the one who was planning to get some bright peacock-colored, non-toxic makeup to hide how I felt about college making me look like shit?

In the introduction, a few lines were read off of paper. I thought, “Why weren’t they memorized and intensified?” I asked myself why I was thinking like that, when they were doing what they could. When we are all busy and tired.

A beautiful Asian girl came on to sing and my heart started sinking. My unknown relatives were in Thailand when the tsunami hit. She was so polka-dotted and wonderful looking and sounding, too. I wanted to be that. Then my heart dipped a bit more because I knew that tragedy was denying ourselves of ourselves.

But I had started fighting depression much earlier in the day, the depression that started way too long ago. So I started to enjoy the show. Thinking that positives are gold. Pure gold. Like when you look at the sun. Can you keep that beautiful light in your eyes? No. But if you were a plant, wouldn’t you have grown from it?

Jen came on. Jennifer Cline as part of Motion Sickness. She was the one I came for. I love her and I’ve only just begun having golden moments with her. I remember her practicing to me in an untouched patch of grass on campus. She was the screamer. And a real mom as a matter of fact, because she takes care of people’s energies just by being herself.

The entire Haiti benefit was so fun. Irreplaceable. It made me want to entertain, inspire and motivate people just like they all did. It helped me remember that life without passion isn’t like what life should be! So be a composer of your life, and soon!

There is a bench outside of Satterfield that says you can’t be who you should be until you’re who you can be. There is at least one bird on every roof corner singing on Franklin Avenue. There are people who “release the good,” just like Little Nicky, every day!

Advocates of Culture and Knowledge are one amazing group on campus. And a new one at that! Growing quickly like a seed! I wish it for all student groups on campus, whatever suits you. It might be an environmental group, like the Sustainability Task Force, or something that’s preserving the dignity of poetic art forms, like going to the Wick Poetry Center. Anything is possible.

Me recovering and spreading my wings is possible. I have never been able to write about anything without others pouring out their souls around me. So thank you. This is the official beginning of my giant thank you list before I graduate.

Amber Nicole Myers is a senior conservation major and guest columnist for the Daily Kent Stater.