Most of your friends were jet-setting the globe, racking up numerous internships for their resume, managing to write a perfect college essay, studying for the SAT/ACT/AP/SATII, and scoring some killer Instagram posts to boot. So every time someone asks what you did this summer, you feel a little subpar. While some people genuinely feel healthiest spending their time indoors in front of the TV or another screen, most of us tend to become slightly stir-crazy after binge-watching our fourth Netflix Original in a row. So instead of looking at social media and crying your eyes out because your life isn’t as “exciting” as some of your friends’, go outside and make the most out of what Ithaca has to offer for the rest of the summer (you still have until September 21!) and year-round.
Between the CFCU Downtown Summer Concert Series, concerts at Taughannock, Ithaca Underground, “Dan Smalls Presents” concerts, and independent shows, this summer there is practically a concert every night of the week, plenty of which are free and most of which are all-ages. Keep up with concerts and you now have something to do almost every weekend. Ithaca is an epicenter for music in the region, boasting hundreds of local bands. Whether you’re into bluegrass, jazz, punk rock, or rap, you have a cultural hub at your fingertips (literally; just open Facebook, find a show, click “going”, and go!).
Go for a walk, go for a swim, take a hike, ride your bike, meditate in the woods. Ithaca isn’t called “gorges” for nothing. If you happened to travel near or far in the past months, you surely found yourself missing home. And if you didn’t, someday you’ll find yourself realizing you took the Finger Lakes for granted. Concerts and events downtown may be harder to get to, especially at night, but chances are you live within a mile of a gorge, creek, or trail whether you know it or not. Go outside and explore a bit. People always say one of the best ways to get to know yourself is through travel. People travel to this region and are changed by it all the time.
Resting, refueling, and recharging for the year ahead is what makes summer so essential. You can pack in as many trips as possible, but you still need some downtime after a nine-month barrage of work. For me, summer is the perfect time to read. High school has continuously drained me of the energy and desire to read, let alone comprehend books. So let summer, or any period of rest during the year for that matter, be a chance to fall back in love with reading, and rediscover the joy you took in devouring Harry Potter during elementary school. Read, draw, write. Nurture your mind creatively, in ways you have been deprived of by textbooks and tests. The next few weeks of summer and the whole year ahead of you could be your best yet. Go outside, take advantage of all the resources surrounding you, and step back from the burden of school every once in a while, if only to pretend it’s summer once again.