The disappearance of the girl from my university is only getting worse. Apparently, the police have found her dorm keys in the forest she was reported to have been heading towards, but that's it. Tracker dogs lose her scent at a road before the forest and the physical search has been deemed complete.
I received an e-mail today from the grad assistant in, of all classes, Sociology. It's a larger room and class that doesn't lend itself well to personal interaction, but apparently I sit close enough to the front (err, second row with no one in front of me, though I'm against a wall) that the GA noticed my behavior.
My MWF schedule has me waking up at 9, getting coffee around 9:30, reading the paper, and then heading off to 10am English. I have Sociology right afterward. Today, I picked up the NIU paper and the local town's paper, both with front-page articles on the missing student. I read them and got teary and choked up several times, which carried over to English and then Sociology.
The GA e-mailed me, asking if I was alright. First off, this blows my mind. I cannot believe she noticed how I was behaving, that I was outwardly affected enough to show it. Second, I cannot believe she actually took the time and consideration to ask me how I was doing.
What I wrote back to her is basically a summation of the below.
I feel myself in a role of leadership, as I am an adviser in the art department. I get to know people from everywhere because they come to me for help or they at least pop into the office and I see and talk to them. This past summer, I did several freshmen orientations, and I remember her at one of them that I did. I spoke to her, helped her understand the crazy world of college, and helped her plan her schedule.
Besides that, I've kind of been adopted as a role model (which is crazy, I know). A lot of the freshmen look up to me (as odd as that sounds) and have asked me for all kinds of advice. I hang out with them whenever I can and just generally enjoy the younger students.
So this is where it gets me. This girl not only lives on my floor (and two doors away to boot), but is part of my art family. We're pretty tight in the department, very social, very supporting of one another. Each division, each class, is a band, there for one another.
It could be my close friends. It could be one of the freshmen I'm close to. It could be someone personally in one of my classes. But that's not the point.
These are the people I look out for. She is somebody I would look out for whenever the need would come. She is someone I would advise, or just talk to, or just plain see succeed.
I am nineteen years old. I have goals, dreams, a future. I am responsible and mature. But at the same time, I am young, naive, irresponsible, and immature. Someone who was me last year shouldn't have this happen to them.
