I had to take my friend to the hospital this afternoon. She got a concussion at a night long Frisbee tournament a few days ago and still has symptoms. Her track coach told her she had to make sure she doesn't have internal bleeding and should get a brain scan. My friend and I drove her the (it's about a one minute drive since we have a medical center, albeit a shitty one, right next to campus) through the dreary weather to the emergency room. It's a tiny place, maybe twelve little treatment rooms and I saw a few boys from the soccer team there as well. Apparently they were there to visit a girl from my soccer team who has scarlet fever. I visited her in her unprivate room, her face all splotchy red and miserable and thought how awful it would be to be there. She's not alone but as my friend said as we made our way back to the car, in that kind of situation all you want is your mom. In college we have to be each others moms, a family, plus each others friends. We need each other to take us to the hospital, to bring us food from the dining hall when we're sick, to give us advice on the best way to remove stains and to rub our backs when we're sad or lonely.

College is not only an experiment on living on our own, but an experiment in creating our own communities. From the time we are born we have a ready made community - the closeness of parents, siblings, grandparents, family friends, sandbox buddies. It's already created for us. So in college, where most of us know few or no people in this new environment, we have to find new people who will support us and who we can support.