I know as a fact that I have said this before, but sometimes, college really does drive me crazy. There really is no such thing as a break. Over Spring Break, I did almost nothing but homework, because I had so much that it took me just about the whole week to do it, and on weekends, that’s what I’m doing: homework, so there really isn’t any end to it. This past weekend, I did almost nothing but work all of Saturday and Sunday, and I still didn’t even get everything done. I have some work left to do.
The reason that I am now suddenly complaining about it is because for once in my entire college career, all I want is a relaxing week. I have a really good friend in California (he is, in fact, one of my best friends), and he is coming to visit me this Thursday. He will be staying a total of eleven days, and I am so excited. We have been friends for almost two years now but have yet to meet in person, and now, we finally will be.
Some may wonder why I didn’t plan this for the summer so that we really could enjoy ourselves and have a good time without me having to worry about school work, but the reason that we didn’t plan for the summer is simple. We tried to do that last year, and my mother wouldn’t allow it. She said that she didn’t know Fady (that’s his name) so she couldn’t allow him to be in her house, especially since she had two kids to worry about.
So, we therefore had to plan it for a time that I would be in college. This was the only time to do that. I thought that I had more than just Good Friday off for Easter; I could have sworn that I had a bit of a mini-break, but no, I only have Good Friday off, so we planned it for April. We couldn’t plan for Christmas Break or Spring Break, because you have to go home, and he can’t go home with me.
I even tried again this time. Obviously, this weekend is Easter, so my mom kept asking me if I was coming home for Easter, and every time that I said no, probably not, she would ask me why, so just recently, I decided to tell her about my plans, and to make a long story short, she said that she would talk to my dad about letting Fady come home with me for Easter. What ended up happening, though, is that my dad said that since Fady is a minor, he and my mom could get into trouble for keeping him at the house since he is not supposed to leave home, and he warned me that I, too, could get into trouble for keeping him here.
Now, whenever I tell someone this, they feel the need to tell me that my father is wrong because of A, B and C, and you don’t need to tell me, because I know. My parents have this implicit philosophy that kids don’t have any rights, that they are not allowed to stand up for themselves when they truly are being treated unfairly, because it is the duty of the child to bow down to his or her parents’ commands, now matter how ridiculous. Needless to say, it is not a philosophy that we share.
With that being said, anyway, it would be expected that they would say this. Fady is a seventeen, so they don’t think that he has any right to leave home. Obviously, he is not leaving home permanently; he is merely visiting a friend. Also, he is not leaving without parental permission. His mother knows that he is going, and she knows where he is going. In fact, she is giving him $300 and is even driving him to the airport to see him off. I tried explaining this to my dad last night, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He told me that none of that matters, because it isn’t going to fly if his mother tries to claim that he ran away from home.
Of course, she bought the plane ticket, so it’s in her name, but my dad simply isn’t going to listen to logic. Both of my parents are like that. Once their minds are set on something, it doesn’t matter how hard you work to debunk it with logic, they’re simply not going to listen. Additionally, my mother is very racist; she always has been, for as long as I can remember, so when I told her what Fady’s name is, she asked me what his ethnicity is (although she didn’t say it like that; that’s too big of a word for my mother), and when I told her that he is Middle-Eastern, she didn’t say anything explicitly, but I could tell by her “uh-huh” that she was passing judgment.
As a perfect example, I remember once, quite a few years ago, when my brother had a friend over, and his friend was white, but he had an adopted little brother that was black. My brother was much younger at the time, so his friend (whose name was Paul) stayed for a couple of hours with his mother and with his little brother, and my mother wasn’t home at the time. During the visit, the little boy (who couldn’t have been any older than three) was thirsty and wanted a drink, so we gave him something, and when my mother found out, she said (forgive the bluntness), “You let a little nigger baby drink out of our cups?!” She was appalled that we would do such a thing. Like I said, she’s very racist.
Anyway, though, the point is that most likely, Fady will be staying with me here at Oz even through Easter, and I just hope that he will be able to do that. I haven’t talked with anyone at the front desk of Waterbury yet to find out if there is a limit to how long a guest can stay. Fady will be staying for a ten days, from the first of April to the eleventh, and we can’t rearrange that; it’s too late, so I’m a little nervous. However, my roommate is a Desk Attendant, so he can probably give me the answers that I need. I just don’t know what to do if he can’t stay here, because he has nowhere else to go.
Plus, I am a little worried about money. I’m not 100% sure, but I think that it costs, like, $7.00 to get into the Dining Hall if you’re not a student, and he’s only bringing $300. That is about $14 a day (assuming that we only eat two meals a day) over a ten-day period, which means that at the very minimum, $140 will go to meals, which leaves $160 for trips to the movies, shopping, etc., which may seem like a lot, but if you think about it, it really isn’t. Plus, like I said, that $140 is assuming that we only eat two meals a day; no breakfast or late-night. I’m sure that we’ll work something out, though. I am really excited about this. Like I said, we have been friends for almost two years now, and we still have not had the chance to meet in person, so this will be great. I’ll let everyone know how it turns out.