School Breaks (Thanksgiving Edition)

11/20/07

For three years now, the Thanksgiving break has become somewhat of an event. Not because I happen to look forward to Thanksgiving itself, but because there are a number of different elements which all seem to come into play right around this time of year, specifically as a college student.

This break in particular is a strange break, because it begins in the middle of the week, plus you lose a day of "do-nothingness" to spend with your family. Throw into the equation that I'm one of the few Americans who despises Turkey and all the other fixings we find on our Thanksgiving tables. Thats why I'm proud to say I'm one of the few people who enjoys Baked Ziti and left over Chinese food as part of his feast.

So the Thanksgiving break doesn't really have a whole lot of appeal for me personally, esepcially since it creates an awkward situation where you have all these friends to see and spend some time with, exchanging the necessary "I missed you sooo much" and "so how is school going" only to say good bye and see them all again 3 weeks later when the semester finally comes to end.

But while the awkwardness is one of the downsides of the Thanksgiving break, the big plus is that it does in fact signal the coming to the end of another semester of college.

For this guy, that would be 5 semesters in the books, and 3 more to go. Kinda scary when you think about it. After 12 weeks, I'm almost half-way through my Junior year, and this break is just the signaling that time is slowly starting to run out. Running out on both the semester and my college career.

But the Thanksgiving break in itself is pretty awkward, because it really just doesnt last long enough to give you that feeling like you were away from school long enough to matter. Youre only given these handful of days where among the things you can do include going to the mall- a bad idea considering these are the busiest days the mall sees- going to the movies- also a bad idea considering we are still about a month away from the Holiday rush of half-decent films leaving us with the very missable shit such as Fred Claus and the Mist.

I lucked out because Syracuse is playing an early season tournament at Madison Square Garden, which means I'll get a chance to watch my current favorite basketball team play in the home of my current least favorite basketball team (no, not the Nets).

But other than that, I'll be spending this all-too short vacation trying to squeeze in visits with friends, watching some basketball, not eating on Thursday and pretending to act like I have work to do before I go back, while my backpack remains unopened until I return (I think I should get some credit for at least bringing it home)

So- I now have 5 days (really only 4 if you take out Thursday, plus nobody does much Sunday when you have to go back making it 3) to try and recharge the batteries for the finals few weeks of another college semester which is ready to be put in the books.

The real treat to look forward to is the Winter break of a college student, which for me sits about another 3 and half to 4 weeks away.

Until then, enjoy your Turkey, and enjoy the time off.

Hopefully I'll figure out a way to do so myself.