This Ain't No April Fool's

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I had a miniature meltdown at school yesterday--possibly induced by lack of sleep or my choice of coffee for breakfast. It may have been an overreaction or just an overflow of pent-up emotion. Either way, it happened and there are witnesses.
A series of unfortunate UCM traits brought me to this point--sketchy charges, having to retake classes, conflicting schedules, unhelpful workers, vague answers.... All this led to a severe mixture of pure sharp frustration and deep soul-twisting concern for future speech therapists. I don't know if they can leap through all the pointless hoops UCM sets up and come out with any compassion or heart for speech therapy left.
After tears and an embarrassing explosion on a fellow clinician, I drove home and ate pretzels with cream cheese and two spoonfuls of Nutella. The repercussions of this coping strategy produced the following nostalgic letter:

Dear Biola,

I didn't realize what a good friend you were until I said goodbye and left you in California. We had our spats and arguments. I complained about you and you stuck by silly unrelenting rules, but you were always good to me. You sent me Godly professors who cared about their students more than upholding strict reputations. You pushed me to grow and learn. You stimulated imagination and passion. You went above and beyond what the average speech-therapy program demands. I didn't realize that, you sneaky undergrad university, you.

You and God have been in cahoots for over 100 years now. I should have seen. It's so obvious now that I'm not with you anymore, but isn't that how it always goes? Children don't appreciate their parents or family until they're away from them. Christians don't appreciate fellowship until they're in situations without a single kindred spirit. Speech-therapy graduate students don't see how wonderful you are until they're brought to tears in the middle of the clinic workroom five states away.

It's been almost two years since we last saw each other and I just wanted to say these words: Thank you for staying as true to Him as possible in this crumbling country. Thank you for housing professors and God-based classes that polished my life and sand-papered my soul. I'm two years late in saying it, but I deeply appreciate you and all that you entail. I miss you terribly. I wish you'd come and visit or teach UCM a few of your moves. I can't come back to you because God wants me here, but you will forever be on my "thank you" list to Him. I sincerely mean this. This ain't no April Fool's.

Yours truly,
Nadine