QOTD: What brand and flavor of chewing gum would you recommend for someone you don’t like? (You thought it’d be another “favorites” question, didn’t you?)
Note: If you don’t know what swag is, click here. And just so you know, I love first years, and I loved my first of college. :)
Living the year of a college sophomore can only be described as a trip through a very, very strange time machine. A set of twenty-four hours swishes by fast, so that the days seem to blend in and suddenly a week has felt more like one extremely long day. One minute I’m on top of the world, the next minute I’m back at the bottom scrambling for the top again. It feels like I have only been in school for a week, but no–it is already September and here I am, faced with history papers to write and mid-term exams that loom head.
Here is a typical day in college (AKA the time machine):
8:00 am Wake up, snooze for twenty extra minutes, and then skim through the chapter of my history textbook that I should have read last night (but was too busy following my BFFL’s Facebook statuses and doing my Statistics homework). I am transported back in time to the Reconstruction era of the late 1800’s.
9:40am Stuff toast in my mouth and take the local transit to school.
10:00am Political Science class (in case you’re wondering, it’s Introduction to American Government). For the next hour, my classmates and I are political candidates of the next election at a primary debate (the kind you watch on Fox news), discussing……issues.
11:00am Play in the library (play = Facebook, blog, Skype, three Statistics problems). Chortle at the first years also in my Poli Sci class, who are sitting a few tables down poring over the Blackboard assignments that aren’t due until next month.
12:00pm Nudge my way through the dining hall and wait half an hour in line just to buy myself a sandwich. Eat a thirty-minute lunch with a friend.
1:00pm History class (American History after the Civil War). I take a quiz on the content I read half an hour ago. I freak out about my grade, get my grade back, sigh and then say, “I knew it was no big deal! I learned this in high school after all.” For a while, I’m back in my Honors U.S. History class again.
2:00pm Arrive at my Language class, huffing and puffing like my chest is about to explode. Translate for an hour.
3:00pm Stop by the dining hall to grab a smoothie and a slice of the world’s best pizza. Chortle at some more first years who ask the cashier what the difference between Flex and Expense plans are again. Go back to the library and start playing (play = Facebook, blog, Skype, and three pages of history reading).
3:15pm Check my Google Calendar and realize I have a meeting in 15 minutes. FREAK OUT.
3:20pm Dash out of the library and forget where Gardner Hall is (even though I remember being there before). I end up asking a couple of first-years where I can find Gardner Hall. I take a shortcut (which a sophomore told me about last year) and get there at 3:29. I begin to think maybe there’s something called karma after all.
4:00pm Lie out on the quad with friends and start looking for cloud formations. Pretend we’re in space. Play Frisbee and feel like a kid again. Get sunburned.
5:00pm Attend another meeting.
6:00pm Go back to the library. Study for real this time because I remember I have a language quiz tomorrow (no playing). Panic because I keep forgetting words that I learned last semester. Miss my old study buddy (who is studying abroad, lucky duck). Wish I was a first-year again.
7:00pm Go home. Eat dinner. Call Mom and Dad, who remind me to take a shower and tell me they can’t believe I’m a sophomore already. I concur.
8:30pm Take a shower.
9:00pm Statistics homework (due tomorrow morning). Facebook, Skype, blog. Youtube, too.
1:00am Stumble into bed.
Repeat.
this sounds very familiar to my college life. love the “4pm” time the most. that’s one of the many awesome benefits of going to college.