By Midas Leung
I am lucky to have my family: my brothers, my sister, my mother, and late father. I have always seen them as a priority in my life and I will continue to do so, but it is starting to feel like a moral obligation rather than a familial love. I cried more when I left my friends than when my mom first dropped me off at a college.
Matter of fact, I actually cried myself to sleep my first few nights at Binghamton, not because I missed my family, but because it was my first time being alone. My lowest point would be writing down bible verses, but that would not last that long. Being a spring admit had left me alone in a community that had people coming back from fall semester already with friends they had made beforehand. I was lucky enough to have some friends that were in Binghamton at the time, but I needed more; sure, they introduced me to their own group, but I knew that I was not going to fit in there.
The first time I stepped into the C4 for breakfast I swear to god everyone was looking at me. It felt like eyes were all on me as if they knew I was not supposed to belong. For my first meal here, I got pizza and a cup of tea but couldn’t eat in the dining hall because I felt a suffocating pressure on me when I was there, so I ate in my lounge in Endicott. Seeing everyone easily going to their classes since they knew where everything was while I was lost was painful, so I spent my first few days just wandering around for hours, mostly in the nature preserve until there was a solid inch of snow on my head.
There were so many activities like bowling, pool, ping pong, foosball, and clubs. So many I would love to do but, at the same time, I was scared of what people would perceive; Some lonerr bowling or some weirdo playing pool by himself. Sure, looking back on it now, it would be stupid to think that, but I had no idea what I was doing or what the norm was at Binghamton. I felt way too distant from my friends that were here since the fall semester. To add insult to injury, watching my group chats from back home blow up about planning activities while all I could do was watch them from afar, unable to participate, felt gut-wrenching to me.
While being a loner in my room scared of everything outside, I found myself checking my email. “Spring Admit Hot Coco Meet and Greet.” I couldn’t help but think Oh, that seems interesting! but when I would arrive, most would not be starting college as a spring admit, but were transfers from other colleges. Most already knew their way of life; only a select few I met actually had some interests that were similar to mine. Once the whole event was about to end, I was about to think that it was a failure as I only had briefly met two people, gaining their social media. Thinking of this failure, I saw by the exit a group of people that were also about to leave the event and I thought “fuck it, what is the worse that could happen?” Little did I know, those to who I had given my last bit of effort would be the ones that would stick with me the most up until the present and my hope, to the distant future. I room with them now in Mountainview and they make every day so fun I can’t imagine relating to my previous mindset of considering transferring out.
To those who are just coming to Binghamton as a spring admit, remember people will not come to you, you will have to put yourself out there and connect in order for people to understand you.