5 Things I did for the First Time while at College
Being away from home for the first time has an intoxicating effect. A whole new set of possibilities are opened and a whole new set of consequences to be experienced. Doing things for the first time will define much of your life in college. Here are five things I did for the first (and in some cases, only) time.
Got Naked in Public
I was in the throws of a mood. I was bored and frustrated and wanted to do something new and different to jazz up the mundane routine that my life had seemed to settle into. The easiest way I found to do this was get naked in a bar for the main reason of “seeing what would happen”. I was with three friends. A sexy girl but uninterested girl, a shy guy and another guy named “Disco Dave” because of his ability to bust hilarious dance moves when drunk. I removed myself to the toilet and rejoined the table wearing only my trainers – my clothes were in a plastic bag. My youthful scrotum was high, my body skinny and my skin fresh. No-one batted an eye. The bar staff ignored me, shy guy and girl were laughing while Disco Dave had become rather uncomfortable,
“put your clothes back on” he pleaded. After 5 minutes, I did. I can only conclude that naked students were a much more common sight that I thought.
Tried to Pawn Electronic Goods
Money was constantly running out. And rum wouldn’t buy itself. I had already loaned a curry and tobacco from various kindly Indian shops and my penny jar was empty like my bank account. My housemate was fast broke too. But he had an old computer screen – one of the fat-backed monitors from 10 years ago (but back then it was more like 2 years old). A mutual friend drove us to the pawn shop who said they didn’t take old screens like that and told us to throw it away. The monitor sat in the hallway and posed a tripping risk for the rest of the year.
Had Unrequited Love
I think this has a lot to do with my religious upbringing and romantic soul. Back then, I wasn’t capable of separating sex from ideas of life-long commitment. I wasn’t aware that you can love and have sex with someone but not be in a relationship with them. So when I started having regular sex with a girl it seemed the proper thing to do was to fall hopelessly in love with her. She was somewhat more mature than me but not mature enough to break our rapport. The painful 18 months that followed accumulated in an argument so intense she grabbed my throat in an effort to end my life. At that point we stopped speaking.
Posed Nude
As an artists model you understand. I saw their drawings of me after an hour standing awkwardly naked in front of strangers, it was certainly an interesting experience to see yourself as 10 separate painters have captured you and I would recommend it as a philosophical exercise in ontology. None of them drew my penis, which was weird, I wouldn’t have minded…
Practiced Meditation
I had my first experience with meditation in university. I attempted to practice every day but did not have the discipline to manage it. But I am grateful for those initial experiences which did much to soothe my anxiety. Meditation is now a big part of my life and those initial classes have done as much to improve my life as any seminar or lecture I attended during my time there.
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