Three and a half months … three and a half bleedin’ months! That’s how long I’ve been away from a good majority of my college friends.
Yes, it was relaxing to be able to sleep in until the sun was halfway done with its daily journey. It was relaxing to not have to deal with classes and essays and readings and, in some cases, tedious assignments and positively monotonous professors. However, something was … well, lacking, you know?
Apart from meeting up with a few college friends in New York City over the summer, I was at home, working at my camp job or hanging out in the city. More often than not, however, I was near home. And it felt good!
I could keep my own hours. I didn’t have to worry about staying up late and keeping my roommate up with my desk lamp or the light from my laptop. I just closed my door. I didn’t have to worry about not getting enough sleep to be well-rested for classes. I just went to bed late and woke up late, usually in time for brunch.
I did what I wanted. I worked on some personal writing projects and video projects, the products with which I was greatly pleased.
But one aspect of my summer was greatly lacking, and that was friends.
It might be because of my location. I live outside New York City and the city seems to be where a decent number of Binghamton students are from, though that could just be my estimate. And there are a load of students from Long Island and nearby areas, too. In fact, I’m willing to bet that the majority of Binghamton students are from Long Island. But let’s make it a gentleman’s bet, shall we?
I mean, sure, the city is a great place to meet up with friends! It’s where all the action is. On a good day, you might be heading to meet up with a group of friends and run into other friends or students from campus, or a handful of celebrities. The former happened to me once. The latter not so much, unless of course you count going up on stage and dancing during the encore at the end of “Hair.”
But now that I’m back, I love it. As I’m writing this on Monday, the first day of classes, I’ve already seen and caught up with something close to 50 friends from last year, maybe more. I still have another 15 or so weeks to go.
The semester is just getting started. Good luck and have fun!