The joy of a Friday is universal. There isn’t a feeling in the world like the feeling of a Friday afternoon at the end of a hard week. We work all week for that shared sigh of relief and the few short days that follow. The weekends represent a brief reprieve from our burdens as students of higher education. For many this means a two night festival of drunken debauchery. For others it’s a few quiet nights with close friends.
Daniel Bautista is a junior at UO and a human physiology major that plans to attend medical school after finishing his degree at Oregon. He’s a firm supporter of the weekend, but as a pre-med student doesn’t always get the chance to enjoy them. I talked with him a little about this conflict. “It sucks when you hear outside people are raging and you’re just doing your homework. That’s a common thing for everyone … it doesn’t bother me, if anything I wish I was right there with them.”
We all balance these two lifestyles in different ways; I spoke with Bautista about his strategy. “Whatever I’m doing is working because I made it this far… It’s all about priorities. I do want to become a doctor one day.” Putting that first is important. Everyone is just trying to relieve some stress on the weekend, but sometimes it’s difficult to prevent this from spilling over into the week. Bautista hails from Southern California and has spent time at renowned party schools like CSU Chico and UC Santa Barbara. But those schools have a different sense of what comes first. He described how at Oregon, the weekend events feel more like a past time than a priority. “People all have their groups, their house parties, their ragers. But you don’t walk down the street and see a couch or a mattress on fire.”
With his chosen career path, Bautista knows better than anyone that school comes first. But we were on the same page on another note: that college isn’t just about education; it’s a social experience and a crucial one for people our age. If you can find a moment of relief between midterms to look at the people around you, you’ll realize you’re meeting the people that you’ll stay in touch with for the rest of your life.
This comradery is important; it isn’t just about the alcohol. Separate from the lifestyle of the more party centric college towns, Bautista spoke to the more laid back and diverse ways that the people of Eugene enjoy themselves. “If you have free time the last thing you want is to be stuck at home. But you don’t have to go out partying. Because we have so much more to offer, not everyone here is into partying.” Eugene is a full and thriving town even besides the college environment, which provides an escape if you need to get away. But even if the college nightlife is your game, it isn’t without variety. Bautista talked at length and with passion about how every bar in the area has a different personality, how even if you’re just looking to get drunk you’ve got a hundred ways to do it.
But a party can be a stress relief whether you’re partaking in the aforementioned debauchery or not. It’s about the community. Our weekend gatherings are a social outlet we can all take advantage of, because you won’t always live this close to 20,000 people in the same stage of life as you. There’s a commonality among us as students, one thing we can all bond over, we’ve all got stress. It’s an underlying theme behind every shot and every stupid idea, but we don’t have to talk about it. It’s enough that we’re together, and each relieving a little of it however we need to. And we do need to, because regardless of our differing studies and complicated lives, nobody in the room is looking forward to Monday.