By now, most people in college probably have that "special" place where they go to most often, whether it be a cafe, center, or just their rooms. I've situated that place as Magill Library. Here are some reasons why I consider Magill to be my home away from "home," away from my actual home.
1. (The obvious) When you spend more time there, surrounded by a collection of inanimate yet lively books, than in your own dorm.
2. When you know, from the recesses of your memory, the operating hours, the "secret" bathrooms, and the best test-taking areas:
3. When someone's sitting in your usual seat at the computer cluster:
4. When the earbuds you have are distorting the computer's sound, and you have to spent about a minute trying to adjust it just so you can listen to some good R&B music:
5. When someone comes through with the free food and drinks at the front:
6. When you're looking for something important while also trying to avoid eye contact:
7. When the entire squad turns up in one of the private study rooms:
8. When it closes early for the weekends and there's still things you want to do:
9. When you become desperate to the point where you try to make your room look like a library to compensate, but fail at doing so:
10. When you're currently in Magill at this very moment, trying to think of reasons for an Odyssey article while also trying to do work at the same time:
11. When you realize that this is your first article where images and GIFs become the main component to your article, and that you are really, truly running out of ideas at this point:
12. When you become thrilled at the thought of finishing this article, walking back to your dorm and then taking a decent 6-7 hour nap:
13. When you try to sleep and think about the life decisions you made thus far, challenging the notion of achievement when you look back and ponder deeply about becoming somewhat of a sellout who couldn't produce more ideas and am now running out of important self-stories to tell that otherwise may or may not jeopardize personal relationships and put you in a state of unquantifiable emotional distress:
14. When realizing that two of your images were from Spongebob and once again remembering fondly about your relation to modern pop culture:
15. When you're mentally fading away and need to get off the computer and everything else your life is connected to, further retreating into a mist of ambiguity and unconsciousness:
