Why does this number matter to me right now?

Because that’s when this chapter ends with a handshake, movement of a tassel and the culmination of 4 years worth of struggles that was my undergraduate career.

The end is coming at me a lot faster than college students hitting up an open bar at an event. (And trust me, free anything gets a college kid going, when the free thing is alcohol, even Barry Allen has a hard time moving out of the way fast enough.) Not going to lie, I’m also 72% terrified of what happens next.

“But Kristina, your life seems pretty put together. You’ve gotten accepted to your number one grad school, you won those awards and you’re going to graduate on time. Shouldn’t you be more than okay?”

Funny how anxiety tells me that success is the number one reason I’m not okay.

Has this semester been as easy as I had hoped? Not even slightly. But then again, would I truly be Kristina if I didn’t want an unreasonable amount of challenge when I should be coasting through this last hoorah? The answer is no. Kristina Atienza loves challenges. She loves putting herself through absurd stress because it gets the blood pumping and makes her brain work on all pistons.

100 – 72 leaves 28 left over. (At least it did when Math wasn’t the nonsense it is today.) That means at least a quarter of myself is excited for what happens next.

I honestly feel so blessed to have made it this far. I’ve essentially stuck to my plans when I first came to college, but it definitely wasn’t following the linear game plan I had originally come up with. I didn’t think that I’d actually be pursuing Journalism after college because I was so scared about what I was doing meaning nothing in to anyone. But here I am, the station manager of WRKC, one of the best in college radio. We’ve won so many awards since I started here, I’ve come so far as a person, but mostly as a journalist.

The small flame of passion I had for writing is a roaring fire that I don’t see going out any time soon. As much as I love winning the awards, the best thing about them is the fact that it’s actually my work getting recognized. I commit so much time into my job at the radio station and it’s absolutely humbling to see that I’m doing something right that judges in various parts of the country see that I’ve got some amount of potential.

28. I’d divide into some odd statistics, but what you need to know is that all those vibes are immensely positive.

Would I love that number to be higher? Oh most definitely. But the thing I know about myself? All I need is a little bit to go a long way. Just a little bit of drive has pulled me this far along.

All the drama, stress and anxiety is very real but it cannot defeat how much I look forward to the next adventure. Perhaps, starting on Sunday, I’ll be talking about something I’ve appreciate for the following 70 days. We shall see.

All of this seems unreal but I’m seeming to get by. No matter what negativity was shoved in my face, I somehow pulled through. I won’t quit until my heart stops pumping and my soul gets shoved into the next body. 72 days remain as a student in Monarch Nation, but that won’t stop how much of a life I want to grab from these moments.