College is funny. I remember in high school whenever I pictured the typical college experience, I imagined walking around campus with coffee in my hand; I imagined eating ice cream in my dorm room with my best friends and gossiping about our classes; I imagined going out on the weekends and exploring the city (in this case Ithaca) and trying new foods at new places. What I didn’t imagine was spending every free second sitting at my desk reading chapters upon chapters of textbooks and slowly checking tasks off my never-ending to-do list. Looking back, I’m not quite sure why I didn’t have fantasies regarding the academic aspect of college. I mean, it is called college, not fun-times-with-friends-while-sometimes-learning. I guess I didn’t realize how many hours I would be working, including paid work, extracurricular work, and academic work. Instead of going out on weekends, I work in PPECS on Saturday afternoons; instead of spending Sundays sleeping in and having a late breakfast, I film for ICTV; instead of lounging around in my sweatpants eating ice cream, I lounge around in my sweatpants staring at a computer screen (in fact, that is exactly what I am doing at the moment). I can’t say I mind doing the work—I know it is necessary and is the reason why I am here (and I do genuinely enjoy learning). I just find it funny that so many people view college as a place where you go to have constant fun and free-time when in actuality—well, in my actuality—my free time is limited to weekend nights. This is not to say I don’t have fun, I have tons of fun. Really, I do order takeout and watch movies and hang out with my friends. I just do these things in a lower quantity than I would prefer. College is funny, but is is also overwhelming, time-consuming, stress-inducing, rewarding, exhilarating, and full of unexpected and new experiences. You just have to carve out time for them. Now please, let me get back to studying (I do have a test tomorrow, you know).
