Anyone who knows me knows that I hate taking risks. I am a by the book sort of person. When someone suggests doing something a little wild and crazy I always balk. I won’t even try to catch a grape in my mouth because I’m afraid I’m going to choke. I like to take the safe route because I know what the outcome is going to be. Risks scare me because I don’t know what will happen. The ending is unclear.
The summer before my freshman year I went on Callings, which is a summer program for incoming freshman at UD. You participate in leadership building, faith and service activities while getting to know new students and the campus. On the very first day of Callings all the leaders were asked what their favorite place on campus was. People went around giving standard answers like Serenity Pines or KU Field. Then we got an interesting answer: the last stall in the seventh floor boys bathroom in the library.
All of us participants were very confused. He went on to elaborate that the best view of campus was from that stall. He said you could see most of campus and it was so beautiful. A bunch of the leaders agreed with him saying it was an awesome view from up there.
Later on in the week we were on a seek and find (because scavenger hunt is apparently a hazing term). We were supposed to go to places the leaders had taken photos at, but we didn’t have the photos. So instead, my group decided to just take photos at random places. Someone suggested we go to the seventh floor boys bathroom and we all agreed.
Once we got to the library we found that we couldn’t take the elevator because we didn’t have an activated ID, so we took the stairs instead. Once we got up the seven flights of stairs we found the door to be locked. It was quite a catastrophe. We ended up taking a photo on the sixth floor where we thought the window would be.
One day during finals week I casually mentioned this story to my friends. I said that I kinda wanted to go and try again. To my surprise my friends were all for this idea. "Well shoot," I thought, "Now I’m going to have to go through with it." Of course I wanted to go see the view, but I was scared. What if we got caught? What if we walked in and there was a boy using the bathroom? What if? What if? What if?
Despite my fears and internal debate we ended up going. Actually we went twice because the first time we chickened out and just looked through the window in the girls bathroom. But the second time we were doing it for sure. We were going to go into the boys bathroom and see the best view of campus. The four of us made our way up to the seventh floor (luckily by using the elevator this time). We made a pit stop at the girls bathroom before we went next door.
I kept thinking this is such a bad idea. I got close enough. The view from the girls bathroom was nice. I don’t need to see the view from the boys bathroom. But I took a deep breath and plunged into the boys bathroom after my friend. It was empty. Thank god. And then we looked out the window. It was a nice view. But the view from the girl’s bathroom was better. The guys had more of the parking lot while we got more of the chapel.
My friends were a little disappointed that it wasn’t as good of a view as the girls bathroom. But I was on top of the world. I had just done something I had wanted to do all year long. Yes, the view was better in my own bathroom, but I was still on an adrenaline high. I did something I thought I would never do. I did something risky. I did something great.
I’ve been thinking recently about this memory. I’m so proud of myself for doing something a little crazy. Everyone says that college is all about making memories and taking risks and being adventurous. Now I had one of my own crazy college stories to tell my friends back home. I could check something off of my UD bucket list.
What I learned from this experience is that while following the rules is good, breaking the rules isn’t necessarily bad. We all need to take little risks. Yes, we might run the risk of embarrassing ourselves, but if we never take the risk we will never get the reward. We won’t make those great memories or have a story that makes us laugh every time we tell it.
