I’ve spent the last month tearing through expensive beers and sleeping on ergonomic chairs. There’s a morose attentiveness that reminds me vacation will soon be gone for many months.

Returning to college has its share of ups and downs. On the bright side, I will probably wake up with breath that smells septic a lot less often, and experiencing a period of 30 or more hours where I don’t do anything or talk to anyone, might be slightly more rare here in Kent. I’m not making any promises, but college-town life – this little slice of Americana – is filled to the brim with possibilities.

Home feels like a vacuum so many years after high school has ended. Trips there are vacation, but they seem to be nothing more or less than that. I can escape from the pressures of class and refresh mentally, but it feels like life isn’t really going anywhere unless I am mumbling under my breath on the way to classes or staring dubiously at a page from a textbook.

It’s difficult to either anticipate or deeply hate the return to normal humdrum nonsense on campus – there’s a little bit of both going on in my mind. I get to infect the various people I’ve gotten to know in these parts and lure them into a cesspool of irresponsibility via video games and alcohol. There is some sort of inverse relationship between proximity and grade point average, and people who get close to me suffer a lot.

Though, what kind of life isn’t riddled with the basements of expensive homes and pointlessly pricey beverages like He-brew, the beer of God’s chosen people, or anything-schteiner? What is existence if not absorbed through perversely large televisions? Who honestly prefers the voice of a professor over that of the graceless drunken female trying – insisting, really – to do the vocal part in Rock Band?

It feels like it’s time to get back on track. I feel like I am ready to come back; I just really hate to lose the comfort and carefree nature of vacation. All of my friends will pack up and disperse throughout the states, and it’s back to Kent for business as usual.

What useful things can I say? Surely there’s something learned through this glorious month of procrastination and hedonism. Well, I can tell you for sure that I don’t care what Samuel Adams thinks – cranberry beer tastes awful. I mean, the rest of his drinks are semi-decent, but it was seriously almost as bad as drinking a Smirnoff.

Ron Soltys is a sophomore magazine journalism and humor columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].