Arizona State University - Sun Devil Spark / Sahuaro Yearbook (Tempe, AZ)

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FINDING They didn ' t understand how difficult it was. They THE saw in me what I wanted. I don ' t know what I want to do. SUPPORT They realized that music was imp rtant tai me and I - BRIGID O ' NEIL but it wasn ' t what I really wanted to do. Continued from page 3b really wanted to dedicate her life to being a band director. (The music) was me, she said. I equated myself with how good I was. Everyone I looked up to was a band director or a conductor. I thought that once all of that was taken away from me, what would I be? I wouldn ' t be as important or as qualified, and people wouldn ' t think much of me in the music world. I wasn ' t thinking of what I thought of me, but what other people thought. O ' Neil said that her friends were the ones who made her realize what she wanted to do with her life, and her when she made the decision to change her major to wildlife conservation biology. They didn ' t understand how it was, she said. They saw in me what I wanted. They realized that music was important to me and I loved it, but it wasn ' t what I really wanted to do. They were just like, ' Do it ' , and sometimes that irritated me, because I was ' Well, I don ' t know what I want to do ' , and I really did. Since she has been in college, O ' Neil said she learned a very important thing about finding her own place where she would be happy. She found that was not so much a destination as it was a constant journey filled with new experiences. We ' ll go to college, we ' ll graduate, we ' ll get a job, we ' ll do all these things and it will equal happiness at the end of our lives. We ' ll say, `Great! I ' ve led a happy life ' , and I kind of had that philosophy, she said. If I make this band, then I ' ll be happy. If I do well on this test or this audition, then I ' ll be happy. If I have these friends, then I ' ll be happy. That ' s definitely not the Happiness isn ' t something you have to find.

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Moving into a residence hall and out of the place into something you could call home was even harder. Senior psychology major SueAnn O ' Brien was an example of someone who had succeeded in doing so. She came to ASU her freshman year from her hometown of Rochester, NY. When she arrived in Arizona, a state that she had never been to before, she moved into Cholla with three other girls and has lived in the same apartment-style residence hall ever since. Now, in her fourth year, she had a studio by herself, but pointed out how living with those other people in the beginning when you were new was very important. At first you don ' t have anybody else, so roommates are good, O ' Brien said. One year of that was enough, though, and her sophomore year she got settled into her own studio which she has had ever since. To her, this felt very m uch like home. I can decorate how I want, blast my stereo at six o ' clock in the morning or stay up late having to worry about disturbing she said. O ' Brien said that two of the advantages to living in Cholla was that your Continued on page 4b house you grew up in was a adjustment for any freshman. able to make that Text by Jennifer DeCarvalho (Above) through her kitchen, O ' Brien enjoys the solitude of her dorm.. think coming New York by myself was making it on my own. (Right) O ' Brien, a major, each day to and hopes to graduate school. Ever since remember, that ' s what I wanted; do. Photo Craig Valenzuela INTRODUCTION LIFE