Being home from college is strange. All of a sudden, you’re back in your comfort zone and surrounded by familiar people—people who are curious to know what you’ve been up to at school. Some care more than others, but mark my word, they will all ask the same (dreaded) question.

How’s college?

What I could say:

How’s college? That’s a pretty broad question. In fact, it’s not too different from all the vague questions we were asked in my philosophy class. What is morality? What makes a true friend? There’s just too much to consider.

To start, I hate philosophy class.

But the rest of my classes so far are tolerable. I’m taking a new language, which is fun, but it’s immersive—as in no English, ever—and sometimes I just sit there, glassy-eyed, wondering why conjugations exist. Zoning out is actually an art that I’m still working on. Some kids have it down—the perfect combination of attentive head nodding, a cool slouch, and active blinking—and always get away with it. I, on the other hand, have been personally questioned after class on my attentiveness.

There’s still quite a lot left to figure out, like how to successfully avoid buying textbooks and the minimum amount of participation needed to receive an A. However, I’ve learned the most useful skills so far, such as avoiding 9 AM’s like the plague and not letting people mooch off my printing money.

Aside from classes, I realized the true potential of my social awkwardness. First week of college? More like the first week of pure emotional turmoil. Meeting new people was exciting, but there comes a point when you get massively burnt out, and leaving your room is only necessary for food.

It’s true what they say. The first month or so of college is kind of sucky. Nobody can really deny it. You don’t know anybody and nobody really knows you—or at least not how your friends back at home do. You get waves of homesickness and seeing your mom cry when you Skype for the first time doesn’t make it any better. Plus, it doesn’t help that your dog is a few thousand miles away from you.

But after I hit that rut, it was all uphill. I became closer with my group of friends and we explored our new city and found our favorite places. We gave the RAs headaches for blasting Taylor Swift and blew up a whole kitchen attempting to make a non-bake pie. We learned not to eat fondue before drinking and that dancing sober at clubs is more fun anyways. We spent our money on some questionable restaurants and window shopped like crazy. And we broke rules and didn’t care because we’re in college and we’re invincible.

And I’ve truly had an incredible time so far.

What I actually say:

It’s good.