I am about to turn 21.  I've been looking forward to this day since about ten minutes after my 20th birthday, when my friend Tyler said, "Imagine how awesome 365 days from now will be!"  I'm the baby of my friends, so while they've all been doing cool, old people things for the past year, I've spent my time thinking about some different things I've learned.  (Not really.  I've spent my time being sad that I'm the smallest child and unsuccessfully trying to learn how to put on eyeliner).  But, anyway, here are 21 things that I've learned in my 21 years of existence.

I was thirteen years old and had never been kissed.  Naturally, being a girl caught in the throes of the middle school spectrum, this was a catastrophic dilemma.  Late at night I’d lie in my bed, feeling anxiety that I would forever be the girl who’d never been kissed.

It was 10 o’clock on a Sunday night and I was having cereal boxes taped to my body.  At the Ball State Daily News, nights like this are not surprising.

I usually don’t work on Sundays, but I was covering for another designer and was assigned the Halloween double-truck spread.  While I knew it was going to be a lot of work, I was excited because it could turn into a great portfolio piece.  There were a few different articles on the spread, but the main feature was about what to wear for Halloween.

Toward the end of my freshman year of college, my journalism design professor, Ryan Sparrow, approached me and asked if I would be interested in going to the London 2012 Olympics Games to work as a graphics reporter with a team of student journalists.

On my last day in England, I dangled my feet off a cliff of the Malvern Hills.  I've never felt more small... or more alive.  Surrounded by people that were strangers just weeks earlier, I felt completely at peace.  In six weeks, we'd squeezed in a lifetime of experiences and friendships, all of which was magnetized at how small we were in comparison to the depth and beauty of the Hills.