It’s that time of the year again — the time when we pretend as though we remember how to hold a pencil and look to resume our role as college students. With the start of yet another school year looming before us, we’re fortunate enough to have many reasons to be excited to head back to Berkeley.
For starters, there’s the blessed freedom that comes with living away from your parents’ watchful eyes. Don’t get us wrong, we absolutely adore the beings that granted us life. It’s just that we’re ready to leave the house without being given the third degree about who we’re going to hang out with and being asked about our friend’s blood type and ancestral history. We appreciate the dozen times they remind us to put sunscreen on when we go to the beach, so the old adage about parents still stands. Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them.
The absolute deterioration of standards that comes with living with people your age has got its perks. From the encouragement to not do laundry to the judgement-free zone when you buy solely pasta and peanut butter at Safeway, the inevitable regression that occurs when a bunch of incapable, premature adults band together is truly remarkable. Similarly, your roommates don’t care if you have two boba drinks eight days a week. We’re all just trying to get by here. Not to mention the blessed support we experience when alcohol is consumed at wildly inappropriate times.
The masochist within us looks forward to those late nights of grinding in Moffitt. We’re hooked on the bittersweet taste that comes with the assured mutual suffering of everyone in the library. As you lock eyes with a fellow soldier in combat during the Great War of p-sets, the kinship runs deep. We’re ready for battle.
Yet another wonderful perk of returning to Berkeley is the food. Thai Noodle I, Thai Noodle II, Thai Basil, Berkeley Thai House, Imm Thai. Are you sensing a theme here? The best part is that restaurants in town don’t close until well after midnight. The fact that you can get Top Dog until 2 a.m. is the freedom that this great country was founded upon.
Luckily, this city has more to offer than just pad see ew. Only in Berkeley can you get secondhand high by just walking to campus. Sure, people can get a little cracked out on school spirit during football season. And maybe some individuals out there would call the town “too liberal.” We wouldn’t know. We can’t hear them over the snaps and crackles of our biannual firey protests. Regardless of what haters may allege, Journey knew what it was talking about. We want to get back to our city by the bay.
