Summer is known to students everywhere as the much-needed break from the hard work of school. It’s a time when we get to do what we want and enjoy good weather by basking in the sun or going on road trips with friends. We try to fit as much fun as we can into a few short months. At least... it used to be that way. Now that I'm in college, I’m dying to get back to school.
Summer just doesn’t feel the same anymore. Sure, it’s a break from homework, studying, late nights and stressful days. But now summer comes with a list of responsibilities, too. A summer job takes up most of your time, and when you have free time, all your friends are working. When you finally manage to see people from high school, it took weeks of planning and people still couldn’t make it. Summer is spent trying to plan spontaneous fun and rarely succeeding, because no one has the time or money to actually do anything spontaneous.
For me at least, school is the fun part of the year. While I’m at school, I live with some of my best friends, and can see them any time of day. College is where spontaneity happens all the time, in the smallest ways. A late night trip to the store for ice cream because you “just needed it.” Sitting in the middle of the hallway for absolutely no reason except to procrastinate. Running down the hall because you heard some classic Disney song someone else was playing, and you needed to sing along. Choosing to watch a movie at midnight every weeknight, because sleep is for the weak.
Even homework and studying became a party. A dozen people or more would sit in the same room, some trying to do homework, others playing a board game, still others just sitting around to bother those of us that were actually trying to get something done. Homework was fun, if you can believe that, because it was done in good company.
At school, even in the face of responsibility, fun was easy because it was across the hall, up the stairs, or somewhere on campus. And I love that. I live off the constant social interaction of college, so the relatively isolated summer has gone on too long.
Take me back to sharing a room, to classes that are impossible to stay awake in, to the anxiety over a huge pile of homework, to the drama that comes with living so close to so many people. Take me back to stumbling to the dining hall in pajamas, relying on coffee to get through the day, barely being able to make it up onto my lofted bed because I’m so, so tired. Take me back to the stress of college, because the fun will always outweigh the stress.
