Well, I finally got a phone and it’s not been ringing. Turns out my “friends” from home are too busy studying-or partying-to call. Maybe it’s easier for underage students to get into 19+ events at other universities, but being in the compulsory designated driver contingent at this school is definitely not as fun when you don’t have a car. I think I’m one of the few who can soberly find my way back from Gabby’s, and the Duke of York holds no special, completely forgotten evenings for me. On the bright side, though, I go through a lot less aspirin than my quasi-alcoholic legal counterparts.

I love my classes. They provide an excellent environment for napping, and I always leave feeling refreshed, though I often miss entire decades of the English Civil War. I feel guilty for not having memorized all my textbooks yet, since the people in the row behind me are usually animatedly discussing the final chapter…being at U of T is like running a marathon, only instead of athletes, I’m being overtaken by keener Life Sci students with laptops. And there are so many such faceless fanatics with portable tape recorders, it’s easier to get failing grades because I’m only student number X-not a real person.

It’s no wonder I’m being double-lapped, either, because-surprisingly-caf food packs on the pounds, despite it being completely inedible. My roommate and I decided to bite the fitness bullet and go to a drop-in Step class at Hart House very early one Monday morning, which ended disastrously. Despite the endorphins released from behaving like participants in a Richard Simmons video for 50 minutes, we were so exhausted after doing nothing for weeks we came home and promptly fell asleep, missing all our afternoon classes in the process. And Thanksgiving only helped me realize even more how out of shape I am. I decided leaving 20 minutes to get a bus ticket would be adequate on the Friday of the long weekend. Not so. Running with suitcases after fugitive Greyhounds is not my idea of a good time, but I managed to flag down the driver by looking like the helpless and impoverished student in need of familial sustenance that I am.

When I finally got home, I was shocked by the composed state of the parental units. I expected tearful declarations of how much they missed me. I expected vows to keep my sleeping quarters a shrine to my memory. I didn’t expect that my room would have been measured for hot tub dimensions, but nonetheless, the furniture had been moved and mess tidied up (apparently my carpet IS white). It was back to its natural state after I’d settled back in again, though, and I almost didn’t want to come back. Eating decent food for three days doesn’t induce anyone to return to miscellaneous vegetables and mystery meat. And I could definitely get used to sleeping for more than five hours a night. Nonetheless, here I am, dreading the arrival of winter and-much, much worse-exams…