After experiencing the joys of college, especially such an exceptionally awesome one as UC Berkeley, we can’t help but feel sometimes that we should have never left. While nobody denies that it’s important and even enjoyable to spend time with the people who bestowed us with the gift of life itself (hi, Mom and Dad), coming home can feel like some sort of purgatory between semesters where time stands still. At Cal, we’ve seen people take poops in the street and not even blink. Simply put, life at home is dull in comparison. Here are four random things we give up by lodging at home for the summer:
1. Autonomous freedom. Check out this twisted logic: During the school year, nine times out of 10 our parents have zero clue which dark, potentially crime-ridden streets we’re drunkenly stumbling down on any given Saturday night. But when we return home from college, they work out this kind of good-cop-bad-cop alliance. And NOT in a super-fly “Miami Vice” kind of way (see: 4 careers with some pretty cool perks). They insist on uniting the task force that kept us out of trouble in high school, relentlessly harassing our inboxes with demands of our whereabouts. We love our parents and appreciate the fact that they give so many shits about our health and safety (infinitely more shits than we may give about our own). But we can’t help but chuckle when they inquisitively ask whom we are going out with, even though the answer is always the same kids we’ve been friends with since we graduated from orthodontic work.
2. Walking around in our skivvies. At school, there is perhaps no greater feeling than donning just our delicates in our dorms/apartments, where we can laze around scantily clad to our hearts’ content. At home, say goodbye to no-pants Mondays. Siblings, friends of siblings, parents, friends of parents, cable guys, mail carriers and other people whom we wouldn’t want ogling our butt cheeks limit this simple but wonderful luxury.
3. A gym full of youth. The RSF may not be the fairest building of them all, but it has one invaluable resource the gym in our hometowns might be lacking: eye candy. Seeing other 18 to 20 somethings work on their fitness motivates us to show up and work a little harder ourselves. At home, the demographic is just not the same. We are no longer in a college town full of pretty young things and instead of undressing strangers with our eyes, often we really wish that we hadn’t seen what we just saw.
4. Public transportation. Many of us UC Berkeley students hail from the suburbs, where seeing a public bus is like spotting a rare breed of wildlife. When we come home, we almost miss the AC Transit system we’ve grown so dependent on. Its extraordinary way of arriving early when you’re running late and late when you’re actually on time creates a suffer-together bonding experience that brings us all closer. Taking the bus factors in more daily adventure into our lives and is lot less depressing than mourning the loss of an entire day’s pay at the gas pump. As they say, you don’t know what you have ’til it’s gone. Even you, Berkeley public transportation.
If you’re living the home life for the summer, what are some things you miss about Berkeley? Let us know in the comments!
Image Source: The U.S. National Archives under Creative Commons
