If you're a student like me, you may have already tasted the sweet freedom of summer vacation. (if not, then hang in there friend.) There are things that we all love about summer vacation: little to no work to do, staying up late with less consequences, sleeping in and more time to relax. In addition to all of these, here are some things I look forward to every summer:
Barbecues
For a lot of people, summer is barbecue season. It's a time where we spend time with our families and friends and enjoy some good food. I love eating all the fresh burgers, hot dogs, ribs, chicken and any other meat cooked at these gatherings. There's just something special about the taste of meat straight from the grill: You can't beat it.
More Time for Myself
Now that there's no schoolwork to do, I have plenty of time to devote to my hobbies. I can draw for six hours straight, level-grind in my games or just goof off with my friends online or offline. During the school year, there were a lot of weekends where I couldn't even do any of these too much without some sort of academic consequence. Now that I'm free, the day is mine. I can either laze around or choose to be as productive as I can; and that's not something I take for granted.
E3: Electronic Entertainment Expo
If you're a fan of video games like me, this may also be one of the highlights of your summer. I've never had the opportunity to go to the conference myself, but I'm more than happy to stream it online. While I do enjoy all the announcements for new games, new consoles, trailers and gameplay videos, there's another part of E3 that I always look forward to: The wide range emotional responses from online viewers on different social media platforms. This is oddly specific, but very entertaining nonetheless. There are always gonna be people spreading various inside jokes, getting unnecessarily angry, getting excited or like me, just sitting back and watching all of this unfold; And I can't wait to witness this year's response to E3.
Conventions
I've only had the opportunity to attend one anime convention so far, (Otakon 2013) but even if I don't get to go, I enjoy it nonetheless. Thanks to social media, people can share their experiences worldwide. So even if I'm not there, I get to see all the people who had a blast at cons they attended. I love seeing artists advertise various fandom merchandise that they'll be selling at cons, people working hard on their cosplay, enjoying themselves and looking great in it and fans gathering and having scheduled meet-ups at cons to share in the fun. Seeing the sense of community that some of the attendees share just makes me happy; even if I'm not there myself.
Hanging out with Friends
I do enjoy the extra time for myself, but I also love spending as much time with my friends as I can during the summer; especially since most of them, including myself will be going away to college after their vacation ends. It's hard to schedule time to meet up when everyone's either at school, doing extracurricular activities or busy with jobs. So now that the school year has ended, there are more opportunities for us to just relax, have fun and make more memories together.
Despite my strong dislike of hot and humid weather, summer is one of my favorite times of year just because of this vacation time. It's a break from the stress of school and keeping up with grades. There's no feeling like sleeping in and waking up in the morning (or afternoon) and knowing that you don't have to go to school. You're free and will have plenty of time to enjoy that freedom, rest, recover and make more time for yourself and to spend with family and friends.
