There are many reasons why I am looking forward to this weekend. One of them that I discovered this week, is it will give me my first chance in a while to be alone and quiet. Don’t misunderstand me: I love my dorm. There’s fascinating people, interesting clubs, beautiful music and good food. One telling example of normal dorm life happened last Wednesday. I had pan-fried Ramen for dinner with a couple of friends. We had just finished cooking sugar cookies (with red sugar mixed in!) and cupcakes for a dormmate’s birthday. We decided we didn’t want to go out, and so I went back to my room to get my quick-cooking noodles. I borrowed one girl’s frying pan, used my knife to unfold the Ramen in the hot water, my fork to stir the egg before drizzling it over the nearly done noodles, and when it was done she held the pan while I tipped some into her bowl and some into mine. We finished it up and the third girl did the dishes (because she is wonderfully nice).
It was all very communal.
Which there is nothing wrong with. For $.1667 dollars we fed two people (the Ramen pack was on sale at Walgreens). We saved time and energy and DinExtra. We worked together as a team. Which I am fine with, most of the time.
The problem with college is that there are so many people, who are so interested in learning from each other, teaching each other, than sometimes it feels like trying to live in a teaching hospital; or maybe as a bug in a very popular zoo or laboratory.
So in looking forward to this weekend, I realize that there will be something truly wonderful about making myself a sandwich with my own bread, with my own knife, with my own pb&j and eating it without having a socialize or even stop reading my book. I love people and attention, but goodness I like the idea of being alone with my thoughts for a while without looking the loner. I will sit, read a book of poetry, write my own poetry, write my own prose, sleep and watch the scenery. And be quiet within myself.
Maybe I’ll read “A Room of One’s Own” while I’m at it (no guarantees I still have homework. :-D)
Inspirational quote:
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”
