by Gabriel Rickenbach, Switzerland and Eva Schwenger, Germany
Weird beeping. The beeping is getting louder and louder and louder. Where`s my iPhone? I take my iPhone but it isn’t vibrating. I’m confused like Confucius. Suddenly I realize that it`s my friend’s iPhone. Why doesn’t my roommate turn off their mobile phone? School doesn’t start until 1 p.m. for me. Welcome to my home share.
Meanwhile 5.3 miles west a girl stands in front of her closet very troubled. She doesn’t know what to put on. Her phone shows the weather forecast for today: rain and up to 15 degrees Celsius (57.2 degrees Fahrenheit). Time to put on a hoodie and some long jeans. But which should she wear? The struggle is real. With the right jeans and the not-so-right hoodie, she leaves the house. Next task, which has to be accomplished in order to go to school, is catching the bus. Thank god the bus is late as well! She hopes it will be next time or she’ll get into serious trouble. Oh well, it’s just attendance.
I force myself to get out of my bed. My back is hurting. This decrepit bed has probably killed more than one back. I shuffle to the kitchen, grab the cereal and a gallon of milk and enjoy a boring breakfast. Still in my pyjamas I return to my room. One of four beds is already empty, the other three occupied with people who share the same schedule as me. I open my cupboard, grab some clothes which don’t seem filthy, and put them on.
Holding her phone in her right hand and a coffee in the other, she checks in which room she’ll have class next. Why doesn’t her phone connect with the Wi-Fi? She logs in with the username and password provided by the school for the seventh time this week. It’s so tedious to always reconnect with the Wi-Fi! After she has reentered the information she opens the “myEF” App but it crashes. She gives it a second try and it shows where she has to be. But hurry up she’s already late! Entering the room she feels a breeze but the longer she stays in this room this breeze turns into freeze and the girl starts wondering why the school tries to compete with the Santa Barbara weather which one being the coldest.
I hit up my friends on WhatsApp to ask what they’re up to this morning but nobody seems to have a good idea. Afternoon class just wastes a whole day because what can you do in the morning? For the beach it’s too cold and for other activities there isn’t enough time available. Maybe I should go to Starbucks and see how they spell my name this time.
I’m feeling so tired, even though I slept enough. Let’s hope that this class ends soon. The most motivated person in this room is standing right in front of me. Maybe I can sneak out the class and fill my bottle of water. Maybe a snack afterwards? But hopefully the vending machine will take my Dollar bill this time…
Finally, school is over and I’m meeting my friend. Time for our vitamins of the day, also known as Yogurtland, our guilty pleasure. After meeting with our friends we start the tiresome walk down State Street towards the sweet release. When we arrive we happily accept the sample cups and pile them way too high with frozen yogurt. Freed from hunger we’re leaving for Sandbar so the lucky ones in our rows can hit it. Hard. So after a couple of Caipirinhas and some non- alcoholic beverages, we fancy going to the beach to have a BBQ.
We order an UberXL to fit all the people inside and go to Ellwood Beach. While the boys try lighting a fire (which is the saddest thing to watch) the girls eat Cheetos and contemplate on how real men would light a fire. The sun is setting and the fire slowly starts to light up the scene. The music blasts and the mood gets better and better. Nobody wastes a thought about having to go to school early the next morning. Oh well, welcome to California everybody!
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