A typical Halloween weekend. Binghamton students swarmed Downtown, taking the party from the bar onto the street. So far, a pretty anti-climactic story about my standard Halloween. That’s how I felt, until I ran into a professor at a party.

OK, so professors are people, too. I guess I can admit that, as sentient human beings, they deserve to let loose and have a little fun, especially after being grilled on the daily by overachieving SUNY students who are usually just after a good grade and a recommendation. But don’t they have somewhere better to be than my friend’s apartment?

It completely freaked me out. There is no elegant way to illustrate the horror that swept over me as I half-drunkenly realized that my professor was standing in the corner pouring himself a drink. I did a double take and nearly cracked my neck from whipping my head around so hard. ‘What the fuck?’ was written all over my face.

But seriously, how would you react? My weekends are sacred. The word ‘Caturday’ can more accurately describe my standard Saturday ‘ a day filled with pretty much nothing at all except a hangover cure and HGTV. I want no reminders of my academic life, filled with dreaded deadlines and endless reading assignments. (A brief aside: If this school was really looking to go green, it would prohibit professors from assigning such extensive, time-consuming online reserves that are 60 pages long using the double-sided printer in the Glenn G. Bartle Library).

It’s the age-old tale of worlds colliding: the world of pain I experience three times weekly, for a minimum of three hours, dedicated to self-inflicted agony, and the world of whimsy and rainbow machines that my friends repeatedly suck me into, begging me to forget my deadlines and the tyrants who created them.

Fine, tyrant is a bit harsh; and while the daily grind of answering to my professors and printing e-reserves in the library can transform me into a whiny bitch, I still love my classes overall. I’ve even become close friends with some of my old professors, one of which has the honor of calling herself my friend on Facebook.

So where do I draw the line? Social networking vs. social interaction ‘ what makes one more acceptable than the other?

It’s as simple as a reputation. The image you create of yourself is how you will be remembered by those around you ‘ especially the people in charge of grading your papers and serving as your advocate for the summer internship you’re competing for (even though you know working five days a week will be miserable, the dehumanizing resume-builder is obviously impossible to resist).

I don’t want my professors to see me in my alternate universe. I like controlling how much of me they’re allowed to see and usually that doesn’t include my intoxicated self, who’s more preoccupied with where she left her other shoe than with how to conjugate irregular stem-changing verbs in Spanish.

Perhaps, after my college days are numbered (shoot me now), I will smile more happily upon the prospect of sharing a Scorpion Bowl with my professor. You must confess, now you’re imagining fighting for straws with your hot econ TA, which admittedly does not sound so horrifying. But, for now, I’d prefer to keep my professors a distant memory while I’m working up the courage to do my next keg-stand.