More Sizappiness and Nostalgizzle
People are probably tired of hearing my whining about missing school by now, but too frickin bad. Just seeing everyone move back and starting a new year of class makes me more than a little sniffly.
Life at home is nice, but there's just nothing like living on a college campus. Almost everything is within walking distance. Restauarants, bookstores, bars, friend's apartments, softball/football fields, pool hall/bowling alley, workout facilities are all around the corner.
There's crime, but you definitely feel safer than walking in downtown Chicago, and worrying about drunk college kids is about all that's worth considering. In fact, it's almost like living in a bubble, isolated from the rest of the world, and you have travel 2 hours from civilization to reach it.
Waking up early is optional but most of us pull it together despite staying up into the wee hours playing Starcraft or next video (the show was called After Hours, Vic... and after that was Dawn Patrol). Unhealthy eating habits and an irregular schedule are long gone for me by now, which is probably for the better, but I can't help missing those days of gross irresponsibility.
5 bucks could get you a pitcher of beer on almost any night at a Champaign bar, not just one bottle like in the city. IMPE was free for all of us to use, same with computer labs all over the place.
Everybody cheered for the same teams, Illini Basketball and Football, and the entire campus felt noticeably different any time a big game was going on.
Pretty much all of the people you see on a daily basis are your age, meaning that they enjoy all the same things you do, suffer the same life of class, studying, and exams with you, and basically see life from the same perspective.
There are things I don't miss, like exams, loud neighbors, and getting nailed by the bookstores every semester, and I would not go back to school just to re-live the good times. It's just weird, once in a while I'll think about all the stuff I miss, and it comes back in a huge wave of some emotion - nostalgia, maybe, I don't even know what that means really.
