Although I thoroughly enjoyed my young and reckless years in college... those days are long gone. Now, as I inch closer to senior year and graduation, I have begun to realize just how much of a degenerate I was my freshman and sophomore year. The weekends (which started Thursday night for me) were like Christmas day. The obnoxiously loud music which I could distinctly hear as I hiked up to my dorm sounded like "Jingle Bells." The weekend was the gift that just kept on giving. Each weekend I looked forward to something new and exciting. I also looked forward to the 2 A.M. VG's run and for the life of me, I couldn't tell you why. After those long, crazy nights I would stumble back to my Barbie-sized dorm room which fit three of us and fall asleep instantly. The next day I would wake up go to the gym and get ready to go out again.

However, this really isn’t the case anymore. Not only has the constant partying and drinking lost its glamour, I can barely even get out of bed the morning after going out. In fact, looking back on it, I realize just how vanilla those nights were. The crazy college culture which I used to look forward to each and every week was really just a classic mashup of obnoxiously drunk kids awkwardly interacting with one another.

Don’t get me wrong, it was exciting back then, but now it just seems arbitrary. Although it was fun watching friends awkwardly try to flirt or embarrass themselves trying to freestyle (trust me, I am that guy), looking back it is not fun thinking about the dangerous amounts of alcohol we would consume all in an effort to try to interact with the opposite sex. I would much rather watch my closest friends awkwardly dance and rap during an intimate Wine Wednesday at my place than listen to some sex-fueled 18-year-old freshman talk about the amount of Taka he can consume.

Although I wouldn’t change those Gran-Legacy-fueled nights, I don’t see myself storming the dorms to relive my "glory days." I would much rather kicking back with some friends, dancing around like hooligans and talking about how awesome life is. It is these types of nights that I now find myself looking forward to like Christmas day. The nights where close friends make me laugh almost to the point of tears. The nights were I am able to freely talk about the problems and obstacles in my life and not be judged. The nights were I am challenged to look at things in a completely different way. These are the type of nights that make those alcohol-fueled freshmen year nights seem so average.