It is three in the morning on a Tuesday, and I’m walking toward table eighteen, the one I call home. I pass the waiters, give a brief nod to the and take my seat. I the “usual,” water and peanut butter pie. Yes, I’m at an all-night diner.
I start to take out my books, full well that I will be on the same page of Socrates that I’ve been on for the better part of the semester. Of course, it’s —for my group that is. I wait for the empty chairs around me to be .
Just as the Muzak songs start to repeat themselves, Shana and Jenny walk in. I am with the usual big hugs and smiles. , the diner stops being a twenty-for-hour restaurant with bad service and becomes my place—my home the prisonlike dorm room. For the next couple of hours, we will joke about people we know, talk about books, reflect on the meaning of life, quote movies and new private jokes. Table number eighteen is our home.
During my senior year of college, I started going to the diner for a temporary escape from a dorm room that felt like it was closing in on me. Not to the phones, the stereo and the computer. How could anyone seriously to have good study habits? Some friends of mine told me about the place; they went there to study, and they really liked it.
So I tried it. It felt remarkably freeing. I start going there every night (except weekends, of course), and, believe me it was not because the pies were great either. Maybe it would force me to open my books and my would improve. Right? Well….
But that’s not the . I mean, anyone who has gone to college knows that it’s not only about forcing yourself to wake up at 7:45 A.M. (after you had gone to sleep two hours earlier) to listen to a professor spoon-feeding you information the significance of the Battle of Hastings. It is about finding a little haven where you can create what will be the most important thing in your life—yourself. At a school of thirty-five thousand people, I found a small place that was as to me as my Social Security number.
Through laughter, tears, learning, growing and the free ice cream, we found a sanctuary. A place where we could be ourselves.
A.friends B.strangers C.regulars D.waiters
A.make B.take C.bring D.order
A.remembering B.knowing C.deciding D.learning
A.stuck B.focused . C.fixed D.turned
A.certain B.early C.late D.clear
A.washed B.cleaned C.filled D.covered
A.armed B.satisfied C.occupied D.greeted
A.Finally B.Suddenly C.Actually D.Particularly
A.away from B.similar to C.apart from D.close to
A.create B.play C.write D.hear
A.inner B.outer C.warmer D.smaller
A.answer B.talk C.mention D.mend
A.choose B.determine C.pretend D.expect
A.pretty B.that C.too D.rather
A.health B.friendship C.conditions D.grades
A.place B.benefit C.point D.view
A.relate B.requiring C.reflecting D.regarding
A.also B.still C. more D.even
A.available B.beneficial C.familiar D.encouraging
A.special B.occasional C.unusual D.natural