FIVE SUREFIRE WAYS TO HAVE FUN IN COLLEGE DURING A PANDEMIC

1. LIVE WITH THREE GIRLS YOU MET ON FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE AND HAVE IT NOT WORK OUT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM.

Upend your life by choosing to find new roommates for your junior year of college. Look into “deepening connections” with a different side of college life than you have previously. Attend a “roommate bonding picnic.” Take about 1,000 self-timed pictures walking towards a tripod. Resist the urge to flee. Fail to perform your daily rotating chore list that includes, but is not limited to: wiping down the windows, mopping the living room floor, and promising your undying support of their philanthropic sorority. Disagree on almost everything. Move out by November.

2. VISIT YOUR FRIENDS IN UTAH FOR WHAT YOU THINK WILL BE SEVEN DAYS.

Pack your suitcase for a quick trip to Utah to remind yourself that you still have friends somewhere in the continental US. Enjoy a week of female bonding and revitalization. Talk about your current and ex-boyfriends endlessly. Catch up on The Bachelor, and criticize literally every woman on the show for not being “authentic.” Recognize that despite your independence, female friendship (and friendship in general…because let’s be honest, you are not a woman who attracts many straight male friends) is important and even necessary for growth as a person In Their 20s. 

3. STAY IN UTAH FOR 3 MONTHS.

Rent an extended stay AirBnb owned by your friend’s mother. Realize you live .3 miles away from where Ted Bundy killed a bunch of those women. Jog past the house a few times a week as a weird way of reminding yourself that you are in control of your own life. Deadbolt the door every night just in case. 

4. MOVE TO MASSACHUSETTS TO BE CLOSE TO YOUR BOYFRIEND BECAUSE CAN’T A GIRL JUST BE IN LOVE?

Find a “reasonably priced” studio apartment in the heart of Cambridge. Sell your dented 2007 Jeep Patriot and fly to Boston. Rent a U-Haul and take a trip to Ikea with your boyfriend. Experience the human emotion of Sadness when you realize the food court is closed. Lean into the Sadness as you sit down to journal, lamenting that you will never get to try the famous Ikea meatballs. Recognize that in this age you can order anything online. Order shower curtain hooks instead because you are an Adult Woman who could probably do without the Ikea meatballs right now. Open up your ginormous windows and take 1,000 different photographs a day of the light shining through your apartment. Acknowledge that you do not have an eye for photography and that is okay.

5. BECOME ENLIGHTENED AND FREE FROM ALL WORRY OR SELF-DOUBT.

Listen to one-fourth of a self-help book on Audible that your therapist recommended. Quote from the prologue of this book endlessly. Remember to water your plant you bought from Ikea. Tear up at the customer reviews as you try to discern whether or not you’re watering it right. Notice that this might be a metaphor for your own life, but also maybe not. Stream Broad City reruns from your iPhone hotspot because you still haven’t gotten around to setting up your wifi. Have your boyfriend over for dinner and dress up for the occasion. Envision yourself as Carrie Bradshaw. Grow silent over your chicken salad as you analyze whether your boyfriend is an Aiden or a Mr. Big. Try to start writing one of the four papers you have due, then pause after writing the first sentence to post on your Instagram story about how impossible it is to get any work done In The Pandemic. Email your nicest professor about getting an extension. Do five minutes of “yoga” and then give up. Understand that you are constantly Growing and Changing and are also barely twenty-one years old. Know deep down that Acceptance Is The First Step and also that undergrad doesn’t matter. Think about changing your major. Apply to graduate anyways.