Recently, I spent a night doing the following: I came home from a long day of classes, did some online shopping, made myself some dinner, finished up some homework assignments and was in bed by 11 p.m. Pretty standard weeknight right? That is if this scenario had occurred on a weeknight. But, my fellow Badgers, this was on a Friday.
FOMO: the Fear Of Missing Out. Regretting a night in when all of your friends had a killer time out. Studying for a test while everyone else was hanging out at the football game. A feeling that as a sophomore, I no longer have.
What happened to FOMO? Freshmen year, missing a party was the end of the world. On the rare occasions that I did not go out, I remember thinking that it was the end of my social life. But now, staying in for a night is almost a relief. After all, there is no DJ better than Netflix (am I right?). I am going to tell you why it’s OK to be a grandma, and why you don’t have to feel bad for spending a night with your pals at Dunder Mifflin.
First off, you get to catch up on sleep. It’s no secret that most of us lie to our moms when we tell them that we are getting enough rest (10-minute power naps in College Library do not count when you are there until four in the morning). It seems that in college, the weekend is never a time to catch up on the sleep that you lost during the week due to weekends flying by with parties, studying and football. Here’s my secret to getting enough sleep: Stay in! You are a hardworking individual, and you deserve some extra snoozing. That party was going to be sweaty and sticky anyway.
Secondly, staying in is an opportunity to enjoy some peace and quiet. If you share a room like I do, it can be challenging to find time to yourself. Sometimes, at the end of a long week, it feels nice just to be alone and work on your collages. Besides, no party will have music better than what you have in your Spotify queue, and you know it. Treat yo’ self and spin your favorite jams and enjoy some “you time.”
Lastly, you aren’t a freshman anymore, which means you are no longer invincible. If you think about it, freshmen year is exhausting. Looking back, I honestly don’t know how I did it. I had class at 8:50 every day, would do homework, go to the gym, hang out with friends, definitely not sleep and still somehow manage to go out two or three nights a week. I’m baffled, and if you asked me to do all of that again, I would probably laugh, wrap a blanket around myself in the form of a dress and fix myself a yogurt parfait. Somehow in one year I went from fun and social to tired and hungry. And I’m OK with that because I’m not a freshman anymore, I’m a grandma.
The list goes on. It’s cold, it’s probably snowing, you’ve got homework to do, you’ll probably see that one person you really don’t want to see, the music might be bad and you will probably get spilled on. So take my advice. Throw on some heinous sweatpants, order a pizza and call it a night. You’ve earned a fun night in.
Marisa is a sophomore majoring in journalism. Please send all comments and questions to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
