Winter break- that small beam of light at the end of the dark and miserable tunnel known as finals. For me, break usually falls into “The Five Fabulous Phases of Winter Break.”
The first phase of winter break is not really winter break at all. This is the time in which you would contemplate giving up your first born just to fast forward through finals. All you want to do is get a break from school and roommates and have your mom do your laundry while you watch The Price is Right.
The second phase of the Five Fabulous Phases of Winter Break: blackout. Ok, not the type of blackout that we are used to discussing in this column. It just seems like you blackout because one minute you’re filling in 300 scantron bubbles and the next minute you’re driving your car full of crap home while singing “Irreplaceable” at the top of your lungs.
As you arrive to your humble abode, still humming “to the left, to the left,” you enjoy a brief moment of bliss when you’re welcomed into a home that doesn’t smell like the test factory for a new brand of beer that already comes skunked (no offense, Fishbowl. You are finally reunited into the warmth of family and old friends to enjoy the magic that is Christmas…briefly.
It’s not long before this 3rd phase turns into the less enjoyable 4th phase. Now your family decides to put you to work: cleaning, running errands, and just all around doing the many tasks that they decided to put off until you got home. At least you get to hang out with your high school friends, which is great, until you start running into ghosts of hookups past and realize that there is no Seagrape your parents don’t find it amusing when you come home shitfaced at 4:30 a.m. looking for a dance party. Enter phase 5.
You want desperately to get back to school. You miss your stanky house, your dirty room, the Grape, your roommates, you’d even rather go to your 9:30 Friday class than have to vacuum your room one more time and sneak beers down to your basement before you go out at night.
Break usually ends up being alright, even if by the end of it you’re ready to throw everything you own in that box to the left and gun in back to school.
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