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Happy birthday Allison Paige Brown!

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Abiatal Avelino’s walk-off home run delivers SWB RailRiders 6-5 win

<p>As I approach my graduation date and become increasingly melancholic at the thought of leaving, there are certain unlikely pleasures that I&#8217;m started to anticipate grieving the loss of.</p><p>There&#8217;s the community, of course, and the professors, and the good excuse to learn a whole lot. Those things are a given.</p><p>But do you know what I&#8217;m currently getting ready to mourn the loss of? Getting grades back on assignments.</p><p>I love getting grades back.</p><p>There are good grades, of course. There is absolutely nothing better than being anxious that you bombed something and then seeing an &#8220;A&#8221; written on that essay or Blue Book. Or, even better, an &#8220;A+&#8221;.</p><p>There is seldom another situation that makes me smile like that.</p><p>That is a euphoria that I don&#8217;t think I will ever be able to replicate outside of school, and I am distraught about it. I experienced it for many years, and never appreciated it the way I do now.</p><p>You don&#8217;t know what you have until it&#8217;s gone.</p><p>I even like getting assignments back if the grade isn&#8217;t the best, because then I know. And it usually isn&#8217;t as bad as I expect.</p><p>Like many things, the anticipation is worse than the actual event.</p><p>Do you know what else I&#8217;m going to miss? The bliss of a perfectly timed snow day.</p><p>You wake up. You&#8217;re miserable. You just want to go back to bed, but you either don&#8217;t want to miss class or you can&#8217;t.</p><p>You look out the window, and you see mounds of fluffy white stuff. Hope fills your heart. You check your phone, and <em>bam</em> &#8212; you can go back to sleep. What a feeling.</p><p>What will my life be like without occasional snow days with little consequences? I shudder at the thought.</p><p>I&#8217;m going to miss the absolute euphoria that comes with writing a great essay, printing it out, and holding it in your hand. I&#8217;m going to miss the accessibility of the dining hall, and being able to use money that comes off my tuition bill to buy coffee.</p><p>It just goes to show that sometimes, it&#8217;s the little things that get you through everything. If anything, my feelings about these small pleasures have made me want to pay attention to the little things I enjoy every single day.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Toni Pennello</p><p>tpennello@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Toni Pennello is a Wilkes University senior who works in the Times Leader newsroom.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

College Life: School’s little pleasures will be missed after graduation