I found myself in an enviable position in the middle of Waterloo’s winter exam season — I was already planning out my summer vacation.
It helped that I had been done school for a week, the result of beneficial scheduling and an easy course load for the term, but with weeks standing between me and summer employment I found myself with all of nothing to do. It was really a blessing, I know, and one that most readers would kill for (especially if I was a possible target while complaining).
What doesn’t help is that I am stranded at home with neither the people nor the money to do anything. Co-op and exams have soaked up my pool of friends, and exams soaked up any leftover tuition money, shy of about $100.
There are far worse problems to have, so I am choosing to look at it as a challenge; what can I do by myself with $100?
After eliminating a pet monkey as an option, I narrowed my list of choices down to two. I can either buy a video game, like I would have done in high school, or I can buy a long board, like the kind of guy I wanted to be in high school would have done.
Two years ago, it would have been easy: buy the fighting game Injustice 2, and punch the living daylights out of Superman over and over again until Harley Quinn one-liners grow old, and then switch to doing it as the Flash. That was the strategy in high school, and how I spent sophomore year with the first game.
After four terms of schoolwork for 60 hours a week though, I am craving some living daylights of my own. I’ll see how the gym treats me, and I’ll see how the sun feels without a cloud in the sky or hanging over my head.
The same question is ahead of me now, as was posed to me for ten years by frustrated and confused parents — am I going to go outside and play for a change?
In the end, the choice was pretty easy. One hot day was enough to sell me on the benefits of flying down a street on a long board, with the wind in my hair and the sun on my skin — I might as well try to tan some of the school year away. Stretching my legs alongside my imagination for a change is going to make four months of work a little easier.
Everyone needs a hobby, especially for when they get some downtime; I may actually be ready to play outside, so long as I can do it at 25 miles per hour.
If I arrive at SCH in September wearing a cast, it’s because I finally decided to get some fresh air. As a non-student environment, this is a lot more ground-breaking than I’d like to admit.
