Practice, practice, practice. WebWork, WebWork, WebWork. Physics problem sets due the same week as physics exams. College sucks.
These years are the prime of my life. I’m old enough to remember most everything I do, yet young enough not to forget it. I should be out exploring the world and having fun, as opposed to locking myself in a practice room or in the library. Shouldn’t I?
Besides, I reasoned, as an editor of the Campus Times, it’s my duty to find out exactly what people do when they don’t practice. If this requires slacking off, then I should be more than happy to do it. Right?
Right, I answered myself before I could argue with my logic. So that’s what I did. I took an entire weekend and did no homework and didn’t practice once. And I decided that I was no longer a poor, starving college student forced to eat dorm food, but rather a person worthy of good food.
In celebration of this decision, I ate a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast Saturday. Granted, I do this every day, but I actually went off campus for this bagel – all the way down the street to Bruegger’s.
I reasoned that the first thing any good weekend should start with a trip to Lake Ontario, especially since the weather was actually nice. So I headed up to Lake Ontario, where I got ice cream from a little ice cream shop. I even waded in the water for about a nanosecond before my toes froze and I decided that I really missed the warmth of the car.
With the heat maxed out, I headed back down to Rochester. I thought about going to Letchworth, but decided that I could spend my time more efficiently staying closer to Rochester. So I decided to head over to Park Avenue – a place that’s known to every Eastman student, even if they rarely actually go there.
I ate at Esan’s Thai Restaurant, which is probably the best Thai restaurant in this city, and then wandered up to the Parkleigh shop, where I bought myself a piece of jewelry and some Godiva chocolate for the entire CT office. Not to mention the present I got for a friend whose birthday was two weeks ago but who never got a present because I’ve been too busy studying for exams to go shopping.
Worn out from a day of sunlight and walking more than the five seconds between my dorm room and the Corner Store, I decided to call it an afternoon. I headed back to my room, watching TV and made macaroni and cheese for dinner – not having work to do actually grants you the time to cook, apparently – before getting together with friends to go see “Drumline.”
This was, perhaps, one of the worst movies ever made and I strongly encourage everyone to see it. You’ll gain a new appreciation for the practice room, the library, your teeny tiny dorm room and any other place that’s not the movie theater.
Sunday I decided to be adventuresome. I called up Rochester Sky Divers, told them that I was trying my damndest to avoid work and was running out of things to do, and convinced them to take me tandem sky-diving that afternoon. I never would have guessed that the phrase “help me procrastinate” worked so well. Rochester’s actually cool if you’re a bird.
Sound a bit unlikely? Sadly, yes, it was and it is. I did not go skydiving. I did not even go to Park Avenue nor to Lake Ontario, although I did manage to see “Drumline.”
What, exactly, did I do this week? I did homework and I practiced, practiced, practiced. Finals and juries are coming up – what else did you really expect me to do? Besides, of course, go to the Eastman Chamber Orchestra concert Monday night to see bassoonist Renee DeBoer play a kick-ass performance of the Zwilich bassoon concerto.
Jansen can be reached at cjansen@campustimes.org.
