Every week it’s the same exact thing. Monday through Friday, we’re just going through the motions, waiting for the weekend. School. Work. Sleep. Repeat. The weekend approaches, and we’re finally free to do whatever we want. There’s an aura of mystery that something exciting may happen. After a long week, we’re ready to go out and have fun. Or maybe just stay in and relax. We all have our weekend rituals. But what that really means is that every weekend is usually the same exact thing too.
You get home from class and start texting all your friends to figure out plans for the night. Maybe spend a couple hours checking Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or any other form of social media you can think of. You make some dinner, then take a shower. You put on some party music to start getting ready to. You spend over an hour getting ready, trying on countless numbers of shirts until you eventually decide to go with the first one you had on. You straighten your hair, apply make-up, re-apply make-up, and cover yourself in perfume. You finally meet up with your friends to pregame and maybe play some pong or Kings Cup before you head to some party or club. You’re all pumped up because you never know where the night will take you, although usually it’s back to your room, alone, chugging water so you don’t have to deal with a crazy hangover in the morning.
Saturday comes, and you sleep until at least noon. Drowsily awakening and trying to recount what happened last night, you usually end up spending the entire day laying in bed in your underwear and watching Netflix. Maybe you’ll decide to be a real person and put some clothes on so you can go to Panera for lunch or go spend more money than you can afford to spend at the mall. Once Saturday night begins approaching, you repeat the same exact thing that happened last night. Or you might just get back in bed and continue watching Netflix all night because the thought of repeating last night is not appealing whatsoever. Eventually someone will probably convince you to come out again though. Insert repeat of Friday night’s ritual here.
Sunday morning comes and you hate everything because you have class tomorrow morning and you’re already dreading it. You didn’t do any homework all weekend so today’s the day. You get up and make some coffee. You maybe open one of your notebooks in an attempt to start doing work, but you take your time getting it done, which is fine because you have nowhere else to be today. You take a lot of breaks from homework. Again, watching Netflix or switching tabs between social media. You may go grocery shopping or find some small task to get yourself out of the house. You procrastinate as much as possible, but you always eventually finish your work in time. You snuggle into bed at night wishing the weekend was longer, and eventually drift to sleep only to wake up with the typical Monday blues.
So why do we waste all week waiting for the weekend when it’s always the same thing? Back at Arcadia, I always seem to end up at some ridiculous party at Towers or some dirty house that usually ends up getting busted. Then I head back to my own apartment to sleep, or my best friend makes us mac n cheese. Being abroad in Australia, I always find myself at the same club, Ric’s, every single night of every single weekend. Occasionally I’ll check out a new club, but I always end up back at Ric’s later in the night. Unless I’m traveling for the weekend— that is definitely one way to spice things up. But by the time the weekend is over, I still find myself just wanting to be back in my bed. Maybe it’s just that time to ourselves that keeps us going. Or being able to go out with your friends and not having to worry about waking up for class the next day. We are creatures of habit, and we like things to stay the same. We don’t mind our weekends constantly repeating each other because at least we don’t have to deal with the pressures of school and work, the pressures of being busy, the pressures of time, and the pressures of getting done whatever needs to be done next. We can take our time. We can sleep in. We don’t have to leave our room or wear pants if we don’t want to. We have the freedom to do whatever we want, whenever we want. And usually that means repeating our weekend rituals once again.
