Everyone kept telling me that this is the best time of my life; I didn’t believe them.

I am finally a senior in the midst of my final semester here at UTM. I feel as if I haven’t done everything that I wanted to do. I am beginning to question my decisions and my future potential. I know that the world is small. You wouldn’t believe how well I have come to know that fact. I have seen the same people over and over throughout my 22 years, and frankly, am tired of looking at them.

I know this all sounds a bit depressing, but I have managed to find a happy medium.

I don’t know how many of you have read A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks, or even seen the movie starring Mandy Moore. It is quite the tearjerker.

While watching that movie, I was inspired by Moore’s character. She played a high school senior that was dying of cancer. She had found out about her disease several years earlier and decided to create a list of things she wanted to do in her life. This seemed to help her live her life.

I know that college is not a fatal disease, but sometimes it tends to feel that way. I have days that make me question my reasons for doing the whole thing.

Those weeks when I have a test in every class and at least two papers due make me want to give up. So I decided to figure out some things and answer my own questions. I created one of these “lists”.

There are 100 things to do on my list. Some of them are simple things like asking my grandparents how they met and fell in love.

Some of them are a bit more extraordinary - seeing the Eiffel Tower. And some of them are almost impossible like finding the end of the rainbow.

Because of my list, I have become more outgoing in certain aspects of my life. I want to share a story about fulfilling one of the items on my list.

Number 92 on the list is to hold a monkey. I have a strange fascination with monkeys and have always wanted to hold one. My boyfriend was aware of my desire to hold a monkey and was one of the reasons I got to do so. He and I were in my car the Sunday before fall semester began last year.

We were eating lunch at Sonic, and he spotted a live monkey climbing around in the car of one our fellow fast-food entrepreneurs. He turned to me with a strange look on his face and said, “(expletive deleted), there’s a monkey swinging around in that car over there.”

With that, he jumped out of my car and ran over to the car with the monkey. We asked the owners if I could hold the monkey and maybe even take a picture with him. The monkey’s name was Billy Bob. The owner agreed, and I got my picture. That was the day that I began my new life.

It may sound simple, or even a little stupid to some of you, but I truly believe that if I didn’t have the list, I wouldn’t have had the gumption to get out of the car and ask to hold the monkey - even though I always wanted to.

In March, I have decided to take part in a travel-study to Europe. From that trip, I will get to ride in a plane, see the Eiffel Tower, ride a train, and see the Mona Lisa. These are all on my list.

I know in my heart, that without my list, I would have never decided to go on this trip. For almost seven semesters I have climbed the stairs in the Humanities building, passing by the travel-study lists and never giving a second thought to hopping a plane and going to a foreign land.

I want to urge everyone that reads this to make a list of your own and tell your friends to do the same thing. The list may take you places that you would never have the ambition to take yourself.

If you are wondering what to put on your list first, I would like to offer a suggestion: Write the words - Graduate from college - in the first blank.

That will get your foot in the door of the world that is before you.

When you accomplish one of your dreams, you will realize, as I have: Each MOMENT is the best time of your life.

Misty Autry is a senior Communications major from Milan.