Single Rider-dom

There is a secret back entrance to the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. One needs a secret ticket to even get in. You hand your ticket to the guy with a conspiratorial wink. You wait for an elevator to take you up over the tracks, then scurry gleefully past the plebes in the regular line, and wait for an elevator to take you down, when you are then unceremoniously shoved into a small bamboo-cordoned queue, where a fedora-hatted cast member yells for ones and twos. You then get on the ride.

Total time: < 20 minutes. Always.

Standby time: ~1 hour. A lot of times, more.

I'm on and off before anyone in the slow line even gets to the awesome inside queue.

Being a single rider is pretty advantageous, even when not at Disneyland. 

Want to go see a movie? Even at the most crowded, there's always that one seat in the middle. 

Want to go to a concert? Don't have to keep track of how drunk your friend is getting.

Want to go eat food? You go where you want to go, order what you want to order, flirt gently with the waitstaff, and leave - no bumbling over who wants to go where, indecision, and coordinating a group. 

Really, why add that extra layer of complexity that compounds with every other person you want to bring along? 

Even before I moved back home, I had a tendency to go the single rider route. Even when I had a boyfriend - for my birthday one year, I decided that I was going to see one of the Thor movies ion theaters. I had my ice cream and movie ticket before I realized my boyfriend also just happened to be there at the dame time. I hadn't even thought about asking him. 

It just makes everything so much easier. There's just one person to keep track of, one set of needs to be met, and one person deciding what's on the radio, and zero solid meetup times to miss, zero people to impress, and zero peer pressure. I can come when I want, and leave if it sucks.

It takes so much time and effort to coordinate with even one person sometimes. 

On the flip side, going single rider does tend to be more expensive - no group discounts, no one to split gas with, no one to buy you that shot except yourself. It can be a challenge to strike up a conversation with people I've never met before. You can end up getting thrown in with some unsavory people. 

But there's also the chance to meet someone awesome, so hang with the other single riders, to find out something new that you never would have found out if you were there with someone. The benefits of exploration and being able to just do things can outweigh the costs that come from flying solo by a massive amount. 

Cuz while I love my friends, sometimes, they are just too dang slow.

Community College vs Four Year College

I've been taking some classes at the local community college, kinda treading water, and I've noticed some significant differences between the community college and the "traditional" college.

For instance, in community college, it is assumed that everybody works. Everybody has a job, or at least some way to make money.
At U of A, that was not the norm. Some people had jobs, but it seemed like most did not and that was that. If anything, people got internships over the summer.

In community college, there are security measures everywhere. There are eye-in-the-skys and bubble mirrors and "public safety officers" everywhere. Everywhere you go, you're potentially being watched.
At U of A, there were entire buildings that seemed like they should have cameras that didn't. Of course, the Student Union was supposedly more secure than a Vegas Casino, but labs and performance spaces were left to their own devices. I mean, locks are breakable and lasers are fricken valuable. I guess there was a higher level of trust?

At community college, people are older. There are still the 18-19 year olds, but a lot of the people who are in freshman-level classes are 21+ - and in every class I've been in there is at least one person who is significantly more established than the average college student is expected to be.
At U of A, seeing anyone over 25 who wasn't a professor or TA of some kind was abnormal and viewed with suspicion. You are expected to go in at 18, do your four years, and either do grad studies or get TF out of there. No one old is allowed.

At community college, you tend to fend more for yourself. There's public high school level disparity between advisers and students, and while the professors are nice, they actually go home at the end of the day.
At U of A, you are smothered with people trying to make your life easier. There was always a prescribed path, a group you get railroaded into, someone you gotta meet to finish something out - at least when you're a freshman - then it goes away fast.

SO overall, plusses and minusses both ways. You don't always necessarily get what you pay for.