Dormitory alone

  

  I throw myself on my bed being exhausted. I can hear my roommates under me talking loudly about food they are going to eat in home during weekends. Wishing the dormitory weekend menus to be good, I close my eyes for a short sleep until the first self study time begins.

  Surprised with a large sound coming out from my alarm clock, I wake up. The total silence in a whole room makes me hard to believe that only 30 minutes have passed from the moment that the whole dormitory was full of sound of students being excited about going home. I consider sleeping for a whole self study for a moment, but I soon make up my mind and get out of the bed since I know dormitory teacher always look around the empty dormitory in order to check whether students cleaned their room before they leave.

  I slowly put books in to study during the first self study time in my bag and go up to a cafeteria, my favorite place to study. A cafeteria which is usually full of students preparing for presentations is literally empty now. Even a very small sound makes a large echo in a cafeteria.

  The first self study time passes fast (as it always did) and it is time to go 혼정. I slowly go down to dormitory teacher’s office in an elevator. It is surprising that I am taking an elevator since usually, it is almost impossible to take elevator as it is full of students who have to go 혼정 after the bell that informs 9 o’clock rings.

  혼정 ends in 5 minutes since dormitory teacher only has to check only 10 students in dormitory unlike ordinary times that she has to check almost 200 students. Excited with the fact that I have about 1hour (!!) until the second self study begins, I go up to cafeteria for a bread. It is so unusual to see only 20 bread on a table since ordinary, over 400 bread is waiting for hungry students in a cafeteria.

  Spending time in a dormitory alone seems to be lonely and most of my friends cannot understand me who rarely go home. However, staying alone in a quiet dormitory makes me much happier than staying in home since it allows me to feel ‘I am in a full control of myself’. In a dormitory with a lot of students, I keep reading other’s countenance and do what everyone else does because I feel anxiety when I do something ‘different’ from others, which makes me difficult to do a simple exercise or drinking a cup of tea in a condition where everyone studies so hard all day. In home, In home, my parents who want me to study makes me who want to have some rest to gain some force for next week exhausted. However, in an empty dormitory, I can use 24 hours independently not caring other people, and this makes me so relaxed.