Every adolescent birthday celebration I ever had was an awkward and terrible experience. When I started college, I tried to hide my birthday and avoid being the focus of attention hoping history wouldn’t repeat itself. These efforts were always in vain, especially this year.

It was around eight at night before anyone caught on. None of my family members called to wish me happy birthday, my friends were M.I.A., and I even joked about birthdays with a resident. The most obvious is the most unseen. Knowing this, I should’ve shut myself in my room and slept through the rest of the night. Instead I went to a ResLife program where I was greeted with balloons and cookie cake. All I could think was “Damn, so close.” It was followed by songs, attempted hugs (I have a thing with personal space), and well wishes that I really didn’t need. When all the excitement settled I went back to my room where I was ambushed by all my friends holding, you guessed it, another cake.

I was tired but they wanted to celebrate and their cake was made of ice cream so it added urgency to their request. My residents heard all the noise and came out to see. They became upset claiming I was a bad person for not telling anyone or making it “facebook official.” Leaving the minors behind, my friends and I packed into two cars and went off to a bar to get something to eat and devour the melting cake. Two drinks, ten wings, and a basket of loaded fries later, I made it home and overslept through the first of my nine hour day.

Apparently in their drunken stupor, my friends decided we should all go to Canada to celebrate my birthday (two days expired) in Toronto’s illest night clubs. I had homework to do and didn’t want to spend any money considering the dent left in my account by Spring Break. After hours of pleading and convincing, I finally gave in. Well, it took us three hours to get through customs and every single club closed as soon as we made it into the city. We snagged a hotel room and called it a night. The next morning, I grudgingly followed my pack around a city I love wishing I would’ve stayed in my room to do homework. We didn’t make it back to our college until 5 P.M., just in time for me to clean up and get ready for another birthday party.

This time it was for a female friend who was turning 21 on Sunday so she wanted to pre-game – new terminology for me. I don’t really do this drinking thing – before going to a bar at midnight. Drinking with white people in unknown places scares me but I went anyway making sure to keep an eye on every frat boy, ROTC jerk, and potential rapist or Klansman in the bar. I did have enough drinks to fog my goggles and learn a valuable lesson: women go to bars to rape men too.

I woke up on Sunday feeling terrible. Not because I was hung-over, which I wasn’t, it was a spiritual thing. It was Easter and I had just spent the last four days wildin’ and being irresponsible. The way it’s told here may seem like I was burdened celebrating my birthday but I honestly had fun – just not enough to outweigh the guilt and justify placing my schoolwork as anything but my first priority.