Spread across the lovely Park Blocks in the heart of campus, white tents line the mossy walkways. The rain and the monocloud have decided to skip this part of town (for the time being), leaving us with a glorious day to mingle amongst our fellow academic compadres. The enthusiasm is electric. And it helps to having a rocking live band in the middle of it all.
“Come row with the dragonboat team!”
“Spin the campus housing wheel for some swag!”
“Here, have a frisbee.”
And the two words that college students love more than “bongs” and “beer”: “FREE FOOD!”
I love the Party in the Park that happens during the first week of the fall term each year. While I already have a fairly full-ish plate with classes and a new job, I can’t help checking out what the campus has to offer in terms of stuff that doesn’t include being holed up in the library for three hours. You know, social stuff. It’s all so exciting. All these different groups of people with the common interest of wanting to get together and have a good time. Students flit from table to table, where current club members tell us all about how great and wonderful and fun their club is and why you should join and before you know it, you feel like there was a connection and you give them your name…
What inevitably happens, though, is I sign up for twenty different and equally tantalizing clubs and then maybe show up to two meetings – maybe three. Same thing every year and I know it’s going to happen just like that, and yet, the pattern continues. Why?
Could it be from a deep, inner longing to be a part of something – to belong? All these people in all these groups, these mini-tribes- can I be a part of it, too? Will you be my friend? Or will you reject me, like I absolutely positively irrationally know you will…
Ahem, excuse me, my fingers must have slipped on the keyboard.
What I’m getting at is that… Well, I don’t have a single, solid point. So let’s bullet point this bitch:
- Everyone should join some sort of club, especially if you’re new to the school – spending your whole day studying won’t help you reach fulfillment, Poindexter
- Or at the very least, have a friend – or if that’s overreaching, just an acquaintance – to small talk with once in a while [Even a small talk curmudgeon like me enjoys some light conversation with someone once in a while]
- I miss being a part of student government [Sometimes. And then I remember why it's ultimately unhealthy for me, but that's a topic for a separate post]
- Macadamia nut cookies are the bomb
- No matter how antisocial a person like me seems, I still love people [Really, I honest-to-goodness do, but don't tell anyone]
All in all, the world is beautiful, people are awesome, school is… school, and the meaning of life is still 42.
What clubs are you in or have you been in? Any interesting experiences? What is the importance of clubs and other social gatherings to you?
Read more:
- The “Need to Belong” (Science of Relationships)
- Goals, Socializing, and being Human (Whole Hearted Mama)
- The Freshman 15: Ways to Get Involved on Campus (So It Must Be True…)
- 6 Steps to Meeting New People (For the Socially Intolerable) (Cracked.com)
- “What are the effects of isolation in the mind?” (HowStuffWorks)
