Living away from parents is a fun adventure. In the beginning I felt so invincible. Like, “I’ll stay awake forever on a Monday night because I feel no pain and nothing matters except what I feel in this moment, and right now I want pizza and I don’t care what it does to my body because it’s the middle of the night and I’m in college, man.” This was a far leap from my years of living at home, when my mom was there to emotionally lift me out of bed every morning, my dad was there to spread the peanut butter on my toast, and then the two of them would literally watch me walk from the house to my car yelling after me the inspiring yet slightly condescending phrase, “Make good choices!”
Make good choices. You know, like do your homework, get enough sleep, don’t do illegal things, be nice to people even if you don’t really like them, and any other cliches you can think of.
Look, I try to make good choices. I really do. On a scale of 1-10 for ‘trying’ I’m generally at about a seven. I make an effort to make smart, thoughtful decisions. But apparently, I find myself having to conduct my own experiments to understand what truly is or is not a good idea.
For example, microwaves. I am going to digress for a minute here to state that I do not think microwaves are very user friendly. There are so many unstated rules that everyone except me seems to be aware of. For example, no paper, plastic, silverware, tinfoil. Where on the microwave does it say that? I missed the microwave knowledge gene somewhere down the line. I think it would be an exceptional use of the manufacturer’s time to make lists of things that should NOT ever be used in microwaves, because if I start one more fire my roommate is going to kill me.
What is pathetic is that I know in my life I have been told not to put plastic in microwaves because, if you weren’t aware, it melts. And tinfoil catches fire. And metal explodes or something, I don’t really remember what happened that time. The point is, I never really seemed to internalize what my mom told me about what happens when you leave the Tyson Chicken Nuggets in the microwave for eleven and a half minutes (because you accidentally read 1 1/2 as 11 and 1/2). Of course I listened to her, but I still made an error (and I think my chicken nuggets became radioactive).
People can be guided, but they need to learn on their own. Before I left for college, everyone told me not to take too many credits my first semester, not to eat pizza late at night, not to stay up until two in the morning; all things that one might think fall under the category of common sense. Well, you’ll never guess what I spent my first semester doing.
I have a hard time believing, however, that I would possibly learn how difficult it is to function on four hours of sleep until I had to handle it myself, or how unsettling three pieces of pizza feel after sitting in your stomach at the near break of dawn. If you call him too often, he will stop answering. If you never exercise, you will be out of shape, and so on.
I’ll admit I’ve made a mistake or two this year. I have started a couple of fires. I have gone to class when my eyelids felt glued shut and I was feeling essentially unconscious. I have gotten sick after sharing a drink with someone. I have gotten lost on the way to class because I refused to look at a map. I have had my desk collapse in a 300-student lecture hall because I neglected to properly secure it. But with each one of these mistakes, I have learned.
Words are just words. People learn through experience. Some lessons have to be learned the hard way—that’s life. It would be immensely easier if I would remember the fact that, as I have stated, plastic will always melt in the microwave, but I had to learn from my own mistake. For the record, the microwave that my roommate and I share has been fire-free since February. All we can do is try our best and improve moving forward. So, make good choices, Badgers!
Marisa is a freshman writer for The Daily Cardinal and is currently undecided on her major. Do you have any experiences to share? Is there any particularly good advice you’ve received while in college? We’d like to hear from you. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
