Spartan Times

Michelle’s Mindset on: Time spent at CNCC

Michelle Snowden

Reporter

 

Last January, I came to CNCC ready for a new life and ready to start something new, which I definitely did. Coming from Colorado Springs, a town of over 400,000 people, to Rangely, (which it seems, is only on the map because not much else is around) was a drastic change of sorts. I started the Aviation Maintenance program, a program I practically knew nothing about, but leaped right in. I came knowing no one, and in a sense, knowing nothing. 

Over the last 16 months, I have experienced many new things, some stressful, some emotional, many unforgettable. 

The first day I was in Rangely was a bit stressful; I could find no one to show me to my room, and I had no idea where anything was. But within a few hours, things got better when I was given a key to my new room by an RA and I started settling in. This is when I noticed the beautiful sunset which covered the whole sky and was obstructed by nothing. Later on that night, I looked out my tiny Nichols window again and was amazed by the amount of stars. I had only ever seen that many stars when camping, but now, I realized, I get to see them every clear night. 

Within the first week of school, I had started classes and realized there was no reason to be worried about coming into the Aviation Maintenance program blind. That is, after all, what school is for: to learn. Also, within this first week I threw everyone from home for a loop, including myself. I had come to school planning on staying single, but the exact opposite actually happened, and very quickly. I had started dating someone and we clicked right away and seemed very compatible. Over the next few months, we fell in love and became serious. 

The rest of the semester went great. I was introduced to many new things. I saw my first elk (a whole herd of them), which at first I just thought were some pretty huge deer. Later in the year, I ended up eating elk for the first time. I saw my first eagle. I learned to shoot an array of guns. I also got to do many new things through ORP trips. 

As the spring semester was ending, everyone was excited for summer break, but I was the lucky one who got to stay at CNCC to earn over 20 credits. Going to classes almost 30 hours a week killed. While everyone else seemed to be going on vacation, I was stuck in a classroom. But that summer was when I finally branched out and made friends with the other students in the program. While things fell apart with the boyfriend, I made new friends, one in particular who could always raise my spirits. We practically spent every waking moment out at the Reservoir when we didn’t have to be in class, eating, or sleeping. It was the place to be, whether we were there to sleep in the sun, jump off the cliffs, or lay on the docks in the middle of the night listening to the water splash and stare, mesmerized, at the incredible stars. 

As the new school year began, I got to experience firsthand the downside of a small town. Everyone knows everything about everyone else. False rumors can spread insanely fast, but they also stay for a long time. Though it sucked, it was a good way to find out who true friends were, and which people were two-faced. Among these true friends were my “Reservoir friend” and a new friend, someone who had just started here at CNCC. This friend is the sweetest thing ever and completely unforgettable, and with whom crazy times have happened. It was so nice to finally have a female friend in my life. 

My sophomore year was filled with Aviation Maintenance classes and the newspaper. Many times throughout the year seemed stressful. But in these stressful moments of working on the paper into the night, I became very close to three people. These are people who, at the beginning of the year, I would never have thought I would have been compatible friends with, but I was proved to be 100 percent wrong. Now I get to spend a good portion of the summer before the “real world” begins with them. 

And now, as the year is so close to being over, I have mixed feelings. I have people whom I am close to that I will be leaving. I am very excited to spend a summer in Hawaii with friends and my brother. I am excited to find a job and use the skills I have learned over the last year and a half. I am also a bit terrified. My life is here, and I will soon be uprooting. 

But as we hear in the song “Closing Time” by Semisonic, “Every other beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” Almost nothing went as I foresaw it before coming to Rangely, but everything went as it should have. And now I am experiencing an end to an era, but a beginning to a new time.

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