College 101

I think I’m finally having the college experience that I never had back in college. Sleeping in huge, breezy rooms with dozens of drunken twenty-somethings who are living on summer money and loans from their parents. Taking awkward showers next to silent, grumpy girls who can’t shake their hangovers and forgot to bring flipflops. Waiting in line for breakfast cereal, holding a chipped bowl and a crusty spoon, wiping the sleep from my eyes as I scan the room looking for friends. Sitting around a dirty table at 2 a.m. screaming over one another as a drunken Canadian builds a beer can pyramid and cameras flash from all around.

I never had this experience in college. The dorm rooms were laid out in a very unsocial manner and everyone went home on the weekends. There were a few parties and a few crazy nights, but mostly it was just me and a couple friends sitting around talking and smoking or driving to Minneapolis to see a local band. Hamline was a pretty lame university party-wise. It paled in comparison to the U of M, which didn’t have much to offer beyond frat-house keggers and crowded dorm room gatherings. So I stayed in most nights. I got addicted to CNN during the start of the Iraq war and developed a fondness for all things HBO. Homework was set aside until after the Sopranos and Curb Your Enthusiasm. I saw my friends on the weekends and we went on long drives through faraway suburbs and hacky-sacked under streetlamps in gas station parking lots. It never really felt like I was living some wild and crazy college student life.

But now here I am, twenty-four years old, sleeping in dorm rooms as guys in backwards baseball caps shotgun beers outside my door. I wake up when I feel ready and take a shower in a tiny, wet stall, being careful not to touch the walls. Then I wander downstairs and chat with new arrivals and pre-established friends as we eat breakfast and look at maps. I plan my day according to my mood and if it corresponds with anyone else’s plans, we take off together and explore the city, spending as little money as possible, taking way too many pictures.

It’s a shame that my days of youthful, wild abandon will only be three months long. Everyone else got four or five crazy years. But I suppose my situation is a little nicer what with the lack of actual school. I am very aware that this is my last little taste of freedom. The last time I’ll be jobless with no responsibilities and empty days ahead of me, waiting to be filled. I haven’t had summers like this since I was fourteen years old and the most important tasks in my life were beating the neighborhood boys at basketball and finding enough money to buy candy at PDQ.

Three more weeks and reality sets in. This trip still feels like it’s been one long, incredible dream. The only evidence I have that time actually passed is substantially longer hair and a light tan on my arms. Tomorrow I’m going to Barcelona to see Junior and then I’m going to Germany to see Philipp. After that it’s London and then home. What is it going to feel like as I sit on the plane and leave behind the most fabulous experience of my life? Is it a little like graduating from college? I never went to my graduation, so I’ll make sure to clutch my plane ticket like a diploma as I walk down the runway. Pomp & Circumstances will be ringing in my ears.