By Jonathan Smith, Managing Editor

I miss curfew.

I’ll get that out of the way right now and reserve the right to claim temporary insanity if ever questioned about this in the future. But it’s true, and I’m sticking with it.

Curfew and I had one of those love-hate relationships freshman year. On the one hand, curfew never really bothered me because it rarely interfered with anything I wanted to do; however, I never could bring myself to fully appreciate something that restricted my freedom as a freshman.

Of course there were times when I had to cut something short or leave somewhere early to make it back to the dorm. And nothing could have been more annoying than being threatened to have to write some essay because I forgot to check in for the weekend.

But every night when I got back to Mabee Second North around 11:30, I could be sure of two things. I knew my RA would be around within half an hour or so; I also knew that one of my neighbor’s doors would be open while they were huddled around an Xbox, engaged in a nightly game of Halo. You didn’t knock; you just went in and joined the game that would sometimes last until three in the morning.

At least 50 percent of the friends I made freshman year came from Mabee Second North, and that all came about because we all had to be in the dorm every night-usually watching some movie or playing Xbox.

Now, fast-forward to the present: sophomore year.

As I wrote this at 2 a.m., I stuck my head out the door to see what I could hear. I didn’t hear the sounds of a rapid-fire weapon emanating from a video game system. No taunts yelled down the hall from one video game opponent to another. No evidence that 10 or 11 guys were stuffed in a room watching the Mavericks basketball game. Not even a single door was open. I heard silence.

Probably half the guys on this hall aren’t even in their rooms at 2 a.m.-much less 11:30 p.m.-on any given night.

I can honestly say that I haven’t been in another guy’s room on my hall this year because people are never there, and their doors are certainly never open. Something is just inherently wrong with not knowing the name of a single guy, besides my roommate, who lives within 30 yards of me.

So, am I advocating that curfew apply to sophomores also? No, not having curfew truly is infinitely more convenient for getting work done at all hours of the night.

I know I’ll never convince a single freshman that curfew is a good thing, but just don’t pass up this opportunity you have every night in the dorms. The people you freshman live with now could potentially be some of your best college friends.

Open your doors; get to know each other; stay up ridiculously late every night; play a little Halo. Things will never be quite the same.