Complaints About Home

I've been home a few days now and I've started to notice a few things which are... missing. This is a short list of the stuff I miss about college and/or dislike about home. They're in no particular order and some are, well, just awful, really. But oh well... just laugh; we laugh to keep from crying.

• The kitchen is really far away from my room. At school, I can stand up at my desk and almost all of my food is right in front of my face. Whatever isn't there is in the fridge which is about five feet away. Here, the kitchen is downstairs. There is probably twenty feet of horizontal distance and ten feet of vertical distance between me and the kitchen...
• All of my friends are someplace else. At least J lives fairly close but like... ~80 miles is a little bit of a trek compared to a short five minute walk across campus. And the average distance between me and my friends has got to be well over one hundred miles. As for my high school friends... well, there are like... five of those. But that's not the point! Most of them aren't even back yet anyways.
• I'm far more accessible to my parents when I'm here. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents. And they're also 100% of the reason I am able to go to the university. But dealing with everything once or twice a week when we talk on the phone rather than being bombarded with unnecessary questions or comments all the time... well, it's just nice to have that distance.
• Being the center of attention is annoying. It hasn't happened too much yet but generally-speaking, everyone wants to know how the college student is doing. What am I, some sort of alien? Is the world of higher education some crazy planet that's light years away? I realize part of it is an active interest in my life but I feel like the other half is some form of gawking. Like those people who drive really slow past an accident to see what happened even though it's just an accident.
• There's nothing to do. I'm sure if I really looked, I could find some fascinating things to keep myself occupied with. But not really. Because out here in "Boofooland," as J would call it, there's not a damn thing going on. That leaves hanging out with my friends who - wait for it - are either not back here yet or live a gazillion miles away.
• I'm hungry all the damn time and there's no fast food within a short distance. At school, I can literally go downstairs and walk across the street to the student center. Here, I would have to get in my car and drive a minimum of ten minutes to get something to eat at 2:00am in the morning. Laziness, maybe... but geez. It definitely gives perspective. Also, I should probably eat less because it feels like all I do is eat.
• Internet is slow. It's not just slow, it's unreliable. I think I completely lost my connection three times earlier. It's not a huge deal but when you get accustomed to a rock-solid, super-fast university connection... it's a little irksome to have to stop what you're doing and wait the five minutes it takes your ridiculous radio-based Internet to sort itself out.

Anyways, that's enough ranting for now. I'm going to go to sleep because it's nearly 6:00am here and I'm trying to get on a more normal sleep schedule. I was going to visit my high school tomorrow (well, today) but that's definitely not going to happen now. By the time I wake up, it'll probably be close to school letting out anyhow. Hopefully someone out there finds this entertaining.

And yes, I realize I have a fantastic life. I don't need to be told. I just like to complain.

I'm a university student; aside from eating, sleeping, and working... it's what I do.

As J would say, "tootles."

- E.

Some days, feels like I need a little bit of this... and no, I don't even drink.