Breaking up

A month of rest and relaxation turns to insanity

Winter break this year seemed extraordinarily long.

With my finals wrapping up early, I had an entire month off to be in the wilderness of freedom and do what other slovenly college kids do on break—forget that I have pants in my wardrobe and reinvigorate the failing relationship I have with my Xbox.

Many of my other colleagues who attend other universities had their breaks cut one or even two weeks short compared to Ferris. I playfully quipped that I didn’t have to wake up on Monday, Jan. 7, when many others had to return to classes. I also mocked the inability of others to frolic in festivities during the week of Dec. 17 through 21.

Break was good to me—or was it? What did that month off do to me? Let’s take a gander at why extended breaks aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be through my personal experience.

Week one was absolutely hectic and probably more emotionally trying than any school week. Why? I got married at the end of it. It was a great ceremony, blah, blah, blah. Even I’m tired of hearing about it by now, but hey, it happened. I’ve been planning this wedding for 100 people for the past year; I didn’t want anything to go wrong. On the upside, I did lose 7 pounds this week because of anxiety-induced stress.

Then there were weeks two and three. Unwisely, I took these weeks off for some personal time. I had nothing to do but rest and relax. After completely messing up my internal clock by staying up every night—excuse me, morning—until 4:30 a.m. and waking at the crack of noon every day.

Life was great, until I started watching TV. I pay attention to politics, but I try not to let it get to me and defer my rage in political decisions by reminding myself that I have better things to do, like homework and actual work. However, I learned that homework and working were just crutches holding me up.

Once I sat on my fat rump for a couple of days, I found myself incensed about the right to work issue that passed under a lame-duck congress, the war on women’s rights and the fact that I will now have to leave the state of Michigan if I want to receive equal pay for equal work.

I got all hot and bothered about this, and what made it worse were the six leftover half-gallons of liquor from my wedding reception. So there I was in my sweat pants, dipping Swedish pepparkakors into spiked eggnog and screaming about inequality from my couch while my new-fangled husband looked on in sordid horror at the mess he’d just gotten himself into. This carried on for approximately 480 hours until I had successfully watched everything on Hulu and Netflix.

Week four snuck up on me like a creepy man who hangs out in the dark corners of a bar and approaches you just as you’ve downed your fifth cocktail.

I awoke from my eggnog stupor to find that the honeymoon was over and work had returned—thank the gods. On a list of things I learned over the semester hiatus, the number one thing was that I need to keep busy. When I run out of things to do I start thinking, and when I start mixing thinking with drinking I turn into a very crazy person who inauspiciously trolls political websites at 4 a.m. and knits anime-inspired hats.

So, while returning to the cyclic relationship of school, work and sleep is a horrifying prospect to many, I myself am happy to be back in the swing of things and so too I fathom are the many, many people who had to tolerate my boredom-induced insanity this winter break. Ferris, it’s good to see you again.

3 comments

I’m glad you had a good time. And Congratulatons on the nuptuals! Your husband is blessed to have an articulate and outspoken person who tells it like it is, or call it the way she sees it. Good luck. I’ll look for you in school–and out here at the Torch!

It’s a relief to know I’m not the only one who needs to keep busy in order to not go crazy! Thanks for sharing, you’re not alone in your spiked eggnog stupor & Netflix accomplishments!

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