This time of year. It’s a great sigh of all the world before a long winter, it’s crisp mornings with pleasant afternoons. It’s the smell of must as leaves begin to fall.

It’s also the time for first exams at university.

Coming into October I would be settling into the rhythm of the semester and going through that first round of biology, chemistry, and anatomy testing.

It’s a feeling of knowing many things, but not quite enough.

Once I had a dissection kit and a preserved frog, now I have surgical packs and as many living patients every morning.

How did all that change?

In those days, studying, eating, living in such close proximity to friend’s, it felt like it would go on forever. But it didn’t.

Like the leaves born of this spring, flourished through the heat of summer, and now old in autumn – so many of those relationships have gone away.

The days of first exams are done, and we’ve all moved on. Families, fortunes, and failures have visited many of us, and we’ve all changed.