Senior Stories: ohlife

On August 28, 2010, I finished my first week of college. I thought it was the longest week of my life, and I also went to Brackenridge orientation. On August 28, 2010 and I quote, “I have no life. For real. No life.”

On October 10, 2013, one of my classes was cancelled. I did some work, and then I went on to go to Varsity Bar with my friend Ross to drink ABW, a tallboy, and a shot of gin…and then we went to class. This was my first semester of senior year, day drinking was my hobby.

How do I have such an amazing memory?
Because I’m actually part elephant.

JUST KIDDING! It’s because of ohlife.com.

It’s pretty simple how it works:

You sign up and they send you emails asking how your day went. You can choose the frequency of emails you get from them, you reply to the email, and they store your reply as an entry. Every time they send you an email, they’ll start to add what you wrote last week, two weeks ago, 367 days ago, 765 days ago, etc.

I signed up for ohlife on August 28, 2010…and I’ve been writing/replying to emails every so often ever since my first week of college.

Basically, I chronicled my whole college career. Raw, angsty, and everything in between.
Because it wasn’t a public blog, I never gave grammar or word choice a second thought.
Because it wasn’t a journal, it was just plain text, no pictures or doodles (but you can add pictures now!).
Because it isn’t social media, I’m the only one who can read it.

It’s just me, replying to an email. I didn’t realize I chronicled 4 years until recently.
But thinking about it now…that’s pretty freaking cool. I can’t say the same about my blog (because it’s barely 2 years old) or any other communication medium in my life. Maybe Facebook, but let’s be honest- my Facebook isn’t that personal.

Ohlife let me air out a lot of feelings into an email, privately. As I said, there’s angst in there, from moments I didn’t remember until I got that email that said, “1000 days ago you wrote…”
I love that. Because that means things change, and would I know that 1000 days ago? Probably not. I was tied up in frustration from some trivial moment, and happened to document it. It gives me perspective, from where I stand today and where I stood then. It’s all about perspective. (You can roll your eyes at me now.)

I continue to get emails from ohlife because it has become such a habit, like breathing air (or responding to emails).

This is one of my Senior Stories: memories and things.