Do You Miss Your College Life?

A friend of mine asked me the other day, “Do you miss your college life?” I was immediately taken aback when I heard it because I didn’t know how to respond to this. I simply said, “I do sometimes,” with pretend smile on my face. He, of course, had a very long answer when I asked him same question. After I reached my apartment, I started to wonder if I really miss my college life. I never thought about it since I graduated from the college; it has almost been a year since I graduated – it’s exactly 359 days.

I have never wondered or thought about my college life because I was always occupied with office works and other non-office works. To put it mildly, I never got time to think about it at all. Yes, many of my friends have accused me of being busy all the time, and forgetful of all the fun things we did together. I guess they are right. I must be busy and forgetful as all my friends agree on this matter unanimously. Guilty as charged. 

But do I really miss my college life? Ummm…

Let’s start with my college roommates.

Yes, I do miss my roommates when I return from work and reach my empty apartment – because I live on my own and there is no one to have fun with. Both my roommates are quite far away from here (Thimphu), but one of my roommates occasionally makes a visit here and we get to meet and talk a lot. My other roommate, who is in Bangkok, is always busy with his office works and we only get to Skype when he is free.

Ugyen who is in Bangkok has a Computer Science degree just like me, and he has also acted in couple of Bhutanese movies before. He is a very interesting guy; the way he looks, the way he dresses, the way he acts, the way he speaks… everything about him is unusual and worth observing. He makes every situation funny and interesting when he is in the class or in dormitory.

My other friend Rada, who is currently in Wangdue, has an Architectural degree, and he is a big, big, big… probably biggest fan of Bollywood. He has all the info about every celebrity in Bollywood. He keeps updates on all the gossips and rumors surrounding every actor and actress. When he is done with that, he watches and reads all the Indian news and channels. He is an ideal guy if you want to know anything about India.

With two of these guys in the room, you can imagine how crazy it gets.

For instance…

We had a huge computer in our room with two equally large speakers, and on weekends my two roommates would blast with Indian and Bhutanese music. We would regularly get noise complaints from other students but we used to ignore it and continue our fun. Eventually they would lose hope and go to some quite place elsewhere.

My two roommates would start dancing and force me to join them. If I ignored their request, I would be poured with cold water from a huge blue bucket we kept in our bathroom. Yes, I did get poured with iced cold water once when I refused to dance with them on Dabangg song. It was actually a mutual agreement among three of us to always have fun in our room when we were in stress because of massive projects and assignments. It was our way to cool the pressure down.

This was particularly helpful when we were in last semester of final year. The final year feels almost like Hell because of senior projects and report writing. Students have to spend nights programming and designing their own projects – sometimes we would go without sleep for weeks. But my roommates would always find a way to have fun even in this kind of situation. They would immediately lower my stress – and theirs – by blasting music and making fun of almost everybody in our university. We would laugh so hard and make weird noises until someone shows up on our door with complaints. It was so much fun having two of them around.

There are also other moments which I miss like spending my free time reading books in library, going to field trips, attending lectures and presentations by international professors and esteemed guests, organizing charity, playing piano at center stage, participating in international competition in games, and so on. 

So I guess I miss some of the moments I spent in my college days.

Hopefully, I have answered my friend’s question here.