My fall break involved a reconnection with all the digital media I have been missing out on due to school work and football. Although the football schedule cut into my free time this weekend, Monday turned out to be a full day with no commitments. After sleeping in until noon, the day began off with an intense period of Fifa. Some friends and I spent approximately three straight hours playing Fifa, mixed in with eating Chinese food and donuts. Needless to say, it was not an especially healthy way to spend a Monday, but it felt so right. After those three hours, we finally moved on to the next digital activity: Netflix. I have been to busy to catch any of my favorite shows over the past month of school, so it was binge time on Netflix. We cruised through two hours of Family guy with ease, stopping only for dinner. Once we finished dinner, we returned once more to the cave. Picking up a couple more friends, the environment got even more competitive. Cycling through Fifa, NHL, and NHL arcade, the testosterone filled room could be heard throughout the hallway whenever a big play was made, luckily no one was in the hallway to be disturbed.

Besides video games and Netflix, I also caught up on music. During the summer when I have plenty of free time, I am usually able to search through the internet for new music to add to my iTunes. Obviously, I haven’t had that free time at school, so I was very behind. Thus, during break I found some time to find  new songs which was enjoyable.

Overall, fall break was a really nice time to step back from the stress of academic life by being disgustingly lazy and a total bum.

There is so much that I could write about the past 92 hours, aka our long weekend for fall break.  I could tell you how exciting it was to see all my friends again for the first time, how amazing it felt to sleep in my own bed, or how great my mom’s cooking tasted after eating dining hall food for a month and a half.  But there are three big moments that stand out in my mind from this weekend:

1)    Head of the Charles.  This is the largest crew race in the world, and hundreds of teams come to Boston to participate in the international race along the Charles River.  My high school team, Arlington-Belmont, had three boats in the race on Sunday. I stood on the Eliot Bridge with 50+ other members of the team – some alumni, though mostly juniors and seniors still on the team, and the new freshmen rowers.  As our boats passed through the bridge, we had a “calm before the storm.”  All fifty of us were dead silent, acting like any other fan on the bridge.  As soon as we saw the bow of our boat come through, our team erupted in cheering.  The race headquarters announced over the loudspeaker that we were the loudest team on the water the entire weekend.  People heard us from another bridge further down the river.  We all lost our voices, but it was completely worth it.  Though I’m trying to convey just how special this moment was, words honestly cannot describe how we all felt.  That team is my family, and I now know that they always will be.

2)    Leaving.  The last thing I did on Monday night was say goodbye to my best friend’s family.  We ended up standing on their porch for a while and just talking about life – college classes, how I absolutely hate hiking, how they’re going to “turn me into a hiker,” etc.  Even though it was only about 10 minutes of my entire weekend, it was the moment that meant the most.  Standing with four people that love me just as much as I love them, I was reminded that I wasn’t the only one who had missed the times when we were together.  Just like when I left in August, I had started to convince myself that I was more upset to be leaving than anyone else.  But I saw just how much I mean to this family and it made me even more thankful to have them in my life.

3)    The Present Moment.  This was an incredible weekend with all of my friends (four of my Midd friends came with me, and I got to see every one of my friends from back home).  So nothing could go wrong, right?  Nope.  I am currently writing to you from a Mazda dealer’s Customer Lounge in Lowell, Massachusetts.  Not more than 40 minutes after leaving my house, my friend’s car lurched and two warning lights came on.  We immediately got off the highway and saw that transmission fluid was also leaking from the car.  Soooo we called Triple A (YEAAAH first time using my membership whaddup).  A tow truck showed up and I rode on a four-lane highway on my friend’s lap to the Mazda dealer, leaving three of our friends at a Dunkin Donuts in the town over.  So now we wait.  We have to wait 5 hours for the car to be fixed, had to call our coach to cancel practice this afternoon, and turned a 3 1/2 hour trip into a 10 hour mess.  Can you say Orientation Week story for next year’s freshmen!?  Yeah basically.

And to relate this to media… Moments 1 and 2 of my weekend were completely technology-free, which made them so much more special.  Actually, most of my weekend was technology free because I just didn’t have time to look at my phone with all that was going on.  But at the end of the day, if we didn’t have technology to call all our parents and Triple A, I probably wouldn’t make it to Midd until tomorrow.  So I’m pretty glad we have those things called iPhones.