The College Cycle

The alarm is buzzing.

It’s 8:00. You’re about to be late again.

It’s 8:07. You’ve somehow managed to brush, wash your face (not really), dress up, and reach the classroom in under seven minutes.

It’s a feat most college students achieve every day, without fail. The occasional threat from the professor does happen, but it can’t magically change your body cycle, and make you wake up a little early.

You complete your sleep during the hellishly boring lectures (unless, of course, you go to a really great college, in which case you must thank your stars for non-compulsory attendance or genuinely good teachers). Once in a while you use your phone to text or play a game to make those lectures move faster, but time works in mysterious ways when some uninterested person blabbers away for a couple of hours and gets paid rather well for it.

You go to the canteen. You drink a cup of tea, or a cup of coffee if tea is not your cup of tea. You and your friends check out people, hand out extremely unqualified ratings, and occasionally make comments so ridiculous that you wonder what would happen if a civilized person overheard the table. There are the occasional burns, and you quietly wonder whether you got burnt the most today.

It’s 5:00. Finally done with classes and labs, you change and go out of your room either to play or for a stroll. If you are the type of person who stays in the room every day, you are either exhausted, deeply antisocial, or actually have something important to do.

It’s 9:00. You’re finally alone, but not in the least bit free. You start copying that assignment which is due tomorrow and curse yourself for not having started it earlier. Three hours later, you have managed to complete the homework, albeit half-heartedly.

It’s 12:00. This is the time at which a college hostel really starts. During the day it pretends to be a building with rooms, corridors, notices, and rules. After midnight it becomes a small, badly managed republic. Someone is laughing too loudly in the corridor. Someone is borrowing a charger with the urgency of a surgeon asking for a scalpel. Someone is standing outside a locked room and negotiating entry like it is an international border dispute.

The time between midnight and 2:00 is different for every college student. Some prefer binge-watching Netflix series, some rewatch episodes of Friends (for God’s sake, watch How I Met Your Mother already), and some start setting up the equipment for an all-night LAN gaming session. Some love-birds have already been spotted in their natural habitat, usually near a window or under the blankets, saying outrageously cringe things like, “No honeypot, I love you more.” A few idealists actually try to decipher that day’s lecture notes. Just a tip: you will need to complete a cryptography course to understand the professor’s verses. Some students search for motivational videos on YouTube, but end up watching things titled “Dancing man wearing a horse mask cooks wild mushrooms.” A couple of students actually do something useful, according to the rumors. You do not know any such people. You are a jack of all trades, so it pretty much depends on your ever-changing mood how you spend these critical hours.

It’s 2:00. You’re hungry because of all the (un)productive work you did and decide to make Maggi. Hounds that your friends are, they rush into your room and help themselves as if they made it. One of your friends starts spinning a tale so elaborate it could embarrass Pinocchio. You laugh at their anecdotes and, for a while, it all feels a little like home.

It’s 4:00. You sigh upon realizing what a pain it is going to be to wake up for class tomorrow. Oh well. Lying in bed, you imagine being with your crush, before remembering that they are in a relationship. Or worse, you are.

The alarm is buzzing.

It’s 8:00. You’re about to be late again.