In my five years and change as a Berkeley resident, every once in a blue (and gold) moon (go bears) there'd be a glitch in my overstuffed schedule--somewhere between a PACS106: Peace and Conflict Studies and Applicable Theories in the United Nations in the Global South class and a Student Coalition General Meeting for Protest for Oppressed Workers Planning Meeting (something like that), I'd have a couple of hours to kill, to roam, to be free.
Here are 8 things I miss doing in my downtime in Berkeley:
1. Smelling books. I mean, reading books.
I miss going to one of the twenty-three (!!!) libraries of the university to investigate obscure titles, thumb through math books filled with paragraphs and whose only numbers are the one at the bottom of each page, flip pages of art history books full of glossy photos and no text, or browse rice-paper-paged books decorated in mysterious foreign scrawl.
Off campus, I could go to one of the dozen new and used book stores and reminisce on old titles I'd read as a kid. I'd grab a literary magazine with works by local authors, camp out in a cozy corner of the store, and sample some Berkeley strangeness in the form of haikus and prose. Often, I'd make a spontaneous purchase on a super-duper-you've-got-to-be-kidding-me-this-is-so-cheap discounted hardcover bestseller book and build my personal library faster than I could ever possibly read.
2. Being a lazy obstruction to Ultimate Frisbee-ers. Aka sunbathing at a park.
As disgustingly cliche as it was, I do miss lounging about campus as though I were posing for a college brochure as a token student of color, relaxing on a grassy knoll or sitting cheerfully on the front steps of a Grecian campus building.
I miss warm, sunny days scattered throughout the year. I'm not a fan of temperate weather being reserved for solely to four months of the year . I miss having parks to choose from--where shall I go today: skater park, grove of trees, hilly mound, or stretch of green? I miss going for walks and passing by other people enjoying the little pockets of nature nestled between academic buildings, shops, and cafes.
