Dorm Light

Here'e the funny thing about dorm life.
They never turn off the lights.
There aren't light switches in the common rooms, in the halls, or the bathrooms. There's no way to stop ambient light from seeping in through your door or through your window.

I grew up in suburbia, right by a highway. So the noise of the city doesn't bother me too much. Cars, shouts, the elevators and showers, I can tune everything out.

But suburbia is dark. Like, single streetlamp and the occasional car light dark.

Because its always so light, you do crazy things like stay up until 2:30. You forget that time is a thing. The body has a system by which it tells time using the amount of light you are exposed to. Lots of light? Time to stay awake! Very dark out? Time to sleep! But what about a city where the shadows of buildings mean you don't get much light, but the clinical light of a florescent bulb is your constant companion? Repeatedly tampering with your circadian rhythms is actually used as a form of torture. (College is, in many ways, an amalgamation of different torture techniques.)

But while you're still awake, you're still trying to get something done. You do a little work, you do a little internet-trawling, you read some crazy article on buzzfeed that somehow relates back to a class and that is how you justify it.

But most importantly, you talk. To your friends, to strangers, to people you don't really like but they sat down at your table in the common room so you talk to them anyways.

These are the conversations that teach you more than classrooms. I brought up the allegations that Justin Bieber has hired a prostitute - and we got into a discussion that even if its legal in Brazil, should the media judge him based on where the act took place, by where he is from, or by where the majority of his fanbase is?

I learn a lot in class. I learn a lot in outside activities. I learn a lot from conversations I have during the day.

But the most I've ever learned, about absolutely nothing, I have learned while the sky was darkest, and the dorms shone like a beacon.