For the students of our lady's university, this week was fall break. The crew I jet-setted with this summer went to Switzerland. My RA and seemingly 90% of the senior class went to Las Vegas. Several more of my friends went on pilgrimage to Montreal. And I went home to Logansport, Indiana.
At first glance, one would probably be tempted to say, "Wow, Sarah, your life sucks." This is (occasionally) true - BUT NOT THIS WEEK. I do not care what my classmates did this fall break; these were the most needed seven days of my life. First of all, I slept, on average, 9 hours a night. In my giant double bed, in my own room, in my own house. The full greatness of that can't even be captured in words. When I wasn't sleeping, this week also gave me a lovely chance to pretend to be in high school again/to stalk the bejeezus out of the Swing Choir. The most valuable lesson I learned this week is that, by walking in with a moderately fancy dSLR camera and saying "I'm here to take pictures," you can justify your presence literally anywhere. What's that, Swing Choir has a community performance? You definitely need someone to take pictures of that. Don't mind me, Tri Kappa board members, I'll just be hovering behind you snapping away and quietly singing to myself throughout the whole show - just pretend I'm not here! And what's this I hear - there's a run-through of the first act of Oliver on Monday night? It's definitely necessary that someone sit there and take low-quality artsy pictures of the cast and their backpacks! And the big fall concert for all the middle and high school choirs is on Tuesday? Not only do you need me to take pictures for both the practice and the concert, you certainly need me to throw all my stuff in the best seat in the house an hour and a half before the show starts - because sorry, choir parents, you're simply not as important as the official choir photographer.
Once you've used this excuse enough times, people will actually start to consider you part of the furniture. At this point, you can start showing up to things you really shouldn't be present for without even bringing the camera along. Bdubs with the choir post-concert? Certainly! Oliver vocal rehearsal? Well, we could use an extra bass. And once you've infiltrated these circles, the opportunity arises to learn fall break lesson #2: listening to 15-year-olds gossip about their lives is remarkably fun. I listened to sophomores complain about ex-boyfriends, seniors and juniors talk about cross country creepers and about each other, and foreign exchange students talk about America, imaginary adjectives we'd invented, and, to my great delight, me. Creepy though it may make me, I enjoyed listening to their stories. It's not like I'm around often enough to tell anyone who would ever care, so between that and the fact that I'm 2-5 years their senior, they consider me an excellent confidante - and I get to listen to juicy gossip that will never cause any problems in my actual life. That, my friends, is what you would call a win-win. On a similar note, it's also entertaining to have teenage boys obsess over you, especially when they keep to a minimum their attempts to break your fingers or feel you up (both of which almost happened this week, because you just can't win 'em all).
The inevitably Oliver-infused moral of the story is that, after some consideration, I can state that this week at home was completely fantastic. I earned myself three new Facebook friends and a new Twitter follower, so it would be a success even if we considered nothing but social media. I ate at the brand-new Logansport Buffalo Wild Wings a whopping four times, which benefits both me and the local economy. I spent a lot of time reliving my Swing Choir/Thespian glory days. I watched Hocus Pocus (the best movie ever made) without feeling guilty about whatever I should've been doing instead. And, in case you missed it the first time, I slept approximately 80 hours. I'm sure that all of you other Domers had a lovely time with your Swiss lakes, your Vegas casinos, and your Canadian cathedrals. But I couldn't have been happier this fall break, simply considering myself at home.
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