Her Campus Amherst would like to welcome one of our new writers, Vivian Mac! She will be doing weekly “diary” entries about her adventures being sub-free at Amherst College. Enjoy!
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8/31/2012
“Under the Blue Moon”
To be honest, I was not sure how my first “Sub-Free Friday” at Amherst would turn out. Back in New York City, I would simply take the subway to dine out or pig out on desserts with friends and call it a day.
Here, I’m surrounded by trees and squirrels, the closest to wilderness as I had ever been. The town of Amherst is within a walk away, but there are only so many food options available. Aside from that, I first needed to have some semblance of a social life that does not include squirrels, alcohol and drugs.
Greeting random strangers walking down the road is strange. Only creepy people do that in New York. But it was a vital part of meeting new people and actually having friends. Eventually, it got a little less strange and I felt a little less creepy. By saying “Hi, I’m Vivian. I’m from Brooklyn, NY. How about you?” I met a lot of people at the orientation events leading up to the one on Friday night, Screen on the Green.
Under the blue moon, we watched The Avengers on the Quad. Although I haven’t watched any of the movies related to it such as Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, I learned that there’s a team of superheroes called The Avengers who defeat Loki, the bad guy. And that Robin from How I Met Your Mother is in it. And that the Hulk has serious anger management issues. I did not quite understand what else was happening, but I did get to see New York City get destroyed by extraterrestrial creatures. By the end of the movie, I managed to avoid any major insect mishaps (I accidentally swallowed two gnats on my first day, yum) and got free candy and a t-shirt from the Program Board.
Staying true to our theme, Stearns’ Snacks, we went back to the fourth floor (where all the candy’s at) and snacked on Sarah’s grandma’s brownies, lemon bars and Milky Way Blondies. They are “wicked” good, as Sarah would say. Daniel brought a whole box of leftover Antonio’s pepperoni pizza from the Amherst Christian Fellowship. I have not eaten so much junk food for a long time, but hey, it’s free food.
From a titillating intellectual conversation on North Korea and how my brother looks like Kim Jung Un to a strange but surprisingly typical conversation about the worst ways to die, we talked for hours about anything that popped up in our minds. And if you see people waving, saying “hi,” or singing “Call Me Maybe” to you from the fourth floor, that’s us. We’re not drunk, we promise.