As I enter my sophomore year, I already find myself swamped with homework.
"How can this be?" asks my roommate as she sees me collapsing in my "501 French Verbs" dictionary.
"I honestly don't know," I moan.
The night continued, and I became more and more stressed. The daunting task of completing this first week seemed almost impossible.
The words in front of my eyes began swimming into each other, forming blobs of lines, not even resembling shadows of their old forms.
I shook my head and found myself on Facebook. I noticed that I was missing a nice get-together with friends I hadn't seen in several months.
And that's when it hit me. What am I doing? I'm staying at home, memorizing French verb conjugations and ignoring my friends. This is all on the second day of school. Does this sound normal to you? Yeah, it didn't sound normal to me either.
I'm writing this because in high school, I was always that one over-achieving student who annoyed everyone else in the class (to tell you the truth, I annoyed myself as well).
When I started my first year at UF, I noticed myself falling into the same pattern - all school and no play.
It wasn't until halfway through the semester that I finally realized how much I was missing. The few friends I made were talking about shows, events and campus groups they'd gone to. I had nothing to share.
I remember a friend of mine last year telling me how she went to an 8:30 a.m. exam so hungover that the room was consistently spinning. She used the story as a cautionary tale; I viewed it with awe and wonder as I had never done anything so remotely daring. I was wasting my college years.
With this in mind, I began making a conscious effort to break out of my studious comfort zone. I started attending groups that I liked and started actually going out at night instead of holding myself in. In short, I broke free from my study chains.
College is the precursor to "real life," and it's the only chance to truly explore the facets of your personality and interests.
It is the one time you will find yourself with this many opportunities at your fingertips.
It's the one time in life where you're allowed to follow a whim and not feel the heavy consequences of being spontaneous.
It's the one time in life where you can stay up till 5 a.m. because you don't have to wake up until 2 p.m. for a class.
It's the first few days of classes for goodness' sake! Go out and explore your school and enjoy the Gainesville sunshine (or the frequent rain we've experienced).
I don't recommend going out and getting drunk every single night, especially when you have an 8:30 a.m. exam the next day. However, realize that life isn't so serious, because aren't we all just talking monkeys on an organic spaceship floating through nothing? Have an excellent semester.
Michela Martinazzi is a sophomore art history major at UF.
