One of the immediate perks of being a college student is (in most cases) the extra long summer. As a UC student on the quarter system, I won’t start classes until late September.

So while the bells rang for Foothill to begin Tuesday morning, I was visiting relatives in New Jersey.

For the next week, I’ll be dividing my time between swimming in and kayaking on the nearby lake, playing board games with family, and eating large quantities of food.

This may sound like a lot of fun, and it is, but I didn’t write this to make everyone feel worse about being at school for six hours on what always seems to be the warmest day of summer. No, no, that would just be cruel.

To make up for rubbing in my extra vacation time, I took notes on some of the un-fun, or just random, things that happened over an eight-hour period on my day traveling to the east coast.

Pre-Flight

4:15 a.m. – The first un-fun thing I do is wake up at this time. I rarely did this at Foothill, and never on the first day of school. My parents are rushing around the house trying to figure out why they booked such early flights. The bowl of chocolate-y grain cereal that I pour doesn’t have any answers.

4:31 a.m. – We are still at the house. We are running late.

4:43 a.m. – Now we’re really late. Stress levels have definitely reached the Un-Fun mark.

4:47 a.m. – In the car, my sister realizes that she has packed two bags of liquids. My mother is not amused.

At some point around 5:10 a.m., I am dropped off at my terminal. The reason I am not flying with the rest of my family is because they forgot to buy me a ticket when they bought theirs. (They barely make their 6:00 a.m. flight, while I end up with time to kill, so it worked out in my favor.)

5:25 a.m. – This is the second time that I’ve gone through airport security where the TSA agents have told me not to bother going through the full-body scans. I’m not sure if this proves that the scans are not necessary, or if they just think I look particularly innocent.

I spend the next 15 minutes or so looking for reasonably priced food before I remember that I’m at LAX. I decide on a bag of pretzels ($2.29) and a bag of macadamia nuts ($4.99).

5:51 a.m. – Sitting at my gate, I find that unhappy-face watching is even more entertaining here than during STAR testing.

6:18 a.m. – I feel fancy boarding my flight early with Business Class since I printed my boarding pass from home, which gives me premium boarding status but not a premium seat. {sidebar id=65}

6:19 a.m. – I feel a lot less fancy when one of the attendants tells me that my carry-on suitcase is too big and needs to be checked. As they file by me with sleek roll-aways and handbags, the well-groomed Business Class must see me for who I am, a regular peasant bound for Economy.

6:25 a.m. – My bag has been checked and my public humiliation is over. I am safe in my aisle seat, which is about a foot behind the seat in front of it. I am suddenly grateful for my short stature.

En-Route

Around 7:00 a.m. we take off, but I don’t really remember this because I fell asleep.

8:22 a.m. – I wake up.

8:23 a.m. – The current in-flight entertainment is “The Lucky One.” You know, the super cheesy-looking romance film with Zac Efron? Yeah…who decides these things?

8:25 a.m. – I plug in my headphones so I can watch “The Lucky One.”

9:41 a.m. – The movie ends, and I’m as disappointed with my choice to watch it as I thought I would be.

10:00 a.m. – “School of Golf”, a golf-advice show, comes one. My main problem with in-flight entertainment is how little entertainment occurs. I end up reading.

11:15 a.m. – One of the chefs on the competitive cooking show looks like Kristen Stewart’s older, cooler sister. She smiles a lot.

11:43 a.m. – We begin our descent.  

12:04/3:04 p.m. – The plane lands. Let the fun* begin!

*The fun didn’t start until after the two-hour drive through New York traffic.