In most social situations, I don’t try to take the time to observe what’s going on because I’m so invested in the different stories bouncing off all of my friends. I’m the type of person that likes to switch who I’m listening to in order to get the most interesting information. Our big group usually likes to hang out in our floor’s lounge to talk or catch up. I’m mostly in the lounge studying all night due to my procrastinating ways, which no matter what I do I can’t change. Wednesday happened to be a somewhat anti-climactic day consisting of dropping one of my classes and grabbing a wrap from Trabant. It left me feeling a little bland to say the least but that all changed once I was back at the dorms.

It just so happened that my crazy but lovable floor mate, Emily, was on the eve of her 19th birthday. This called for something spontaneous. She wanted to get her ears pierced, her second holes to be exact. The kicker was that she wanted one of our friends to do it in our lounge. As fate would have it, a sewing needle was found, alcohol wipes used to disinfect it and every girl in our group made it into the lounge to spectate it. While some people were biting their nails, others were watching with eyes wide open. Some people had their phones out to post the spectacle on their snapchats. Others, like myself, sat there laughing in disbelief. I tend to laugh in high stress situations for some reason which could be uncalled for. I just couldn’t believe what was going on and I’m not sure that anyone else was processing what was going on.

It honestly was the best time to observe how people were acting in a social setting because it was so out of the ordinary. As soon as the deed had been done, two new piercings in Emily’s ear, everyone had just sat there talking. We all seemed to talk about wanting to get new piercings or tattoos and wanting to be ballsy enough to follow through with our words. We joked around about getting matching lip tattoos by the end of the semester. I noticed at this point in time, we were just having a completely laid back and organic conversation without our phones. Jokes rolled off our tongues without any effort and laughs echoed through the lounge walls. It was a memory that I would likely never forget especially because of the minimal use of phones.