Can I go back to college?

If there happen to be any college students reading this, I have a piece of advice for you. DON'T GRADUATE. My suggestion would be to go the route of "Mendel Doug," the famed Villanova student who reportedly stuck around for about 8 years without graduating (reports on his actual tenure are varied). Because he was too dumb to finish? No. Because he was smart enough to know that these are the best days of our lives (yes, I know I'm stealing song lyrics).

Nasty cafeteria food, tiny dorm rooms (eek, the closet space!), finals, papers -- there's plenty about college that is not particularly appealing. But you will never have a social scene like that again. Random Wednesday night and you're bored? Guaranteed you can find friends to hit mug night at a local bar with. Weekend nights? You and your whole pack of friends probably have your choice of 5 different mixers/parties/open bars to pick from.

Then you graduate. And hopefully find a job. And your friends scatter around the country looking for jobs of their own. And it's never the same again.



One of my best friends from college moved to Connecticut this weekend, where she'll be getting her Masters degree at Yale (fancy schmancy Ivy girl). I'm so excited for her, but I also know that she doesn't have family in Philly anymore since her parents retired to the Southwest, so she doesn't have much of a reason to come back here. Which means, other than planned trips to CT, or her coming back to visit me, we're not going to see much of each other. Which sucks.

Don't get me wrong, I love my life. I have a wonderful husband and I have been lucky enough to fit in really well with his girlfriends who live locally, but somehow not being able to have a spur of the moment girls' night with the friends who saw me through the ups and downs of college is depressing.

So until I convince them all to move back to Philly (from Connecticut, Chicago, DC, Jersey, etc.), there will be lots of Facebooking, Gchatting, e-mailing and texting to get us through. And, of course, daydreaming about the days of college when all of your friends lived within a 5 mile radius. Sigh.