At this point, it’s been about a month or so since I finished yet another semester. How have I spent said past month? Productively?

Absolutely not. I’ve been doing whatever I feel like doing (since when I am in school, what I am obligated to do is often not what I want to do), which most days has included sleeping for more than eight hours, going out and staying out way later than I have in a while, playing Skyrim and reading like crazy, since I never have time to read for pleasure during the semester. I have no semblance of any kind of set schedule. I don’t wake up or go to sleep at the same time each day, I don’t eat at the same times each day. Other than the reading part, it’s a stark difference to the frantic pace and hard work that characterizes my days during the semester.

Many of my fellow college-goers are off traveling in exotic places or putting in time interning. And that’s awesome and totally respectable.

But here I am, sitting around the house most days that I don’t have to work, not contributing much to society or to the development of my character. Do I feel guilty about this? Absolutely not. And that’s mostly because I work as hard as I can during the semester (i.e., seven classes plus extracurriculars plus working three days a week). So, I consider this time of considerable laziness as earned. I shall catch up on all of the reading and watching that I didn’t get to do during the semester and I shall spend time with friends both old and new that I couldn’t see during the semester because I had to read x number of pages before class or write an essay with some semblance of intelligence, etc. etc.

I know I’ll get restless before the summer is out, because I always do, and at that point, perhaps I shall feel some remorse at that point for lounging around all day whenever I get the opportunity. But the cure for this will of course be to throw myself back into the fray of college, with its academic rigors and challenges. I’ll get back on a regular sleep schedule, I’ll do some hard thinking. I’ll ready myself as I grow closer to graduation.

Until then, I’ll continue enjoying myself. Which is not to say that college itself isn’t enjoyable. I honestly enjoy the challenges of school and I enjoy learning new things and I enjoy my professors. But everyone needs a break every now and then and I’ve only got two semesters left of college, after which I will ideally be a high school teacher, so it’s not likely that I will get the chance to be so slothful anytime soon. For now, I’m going to try to enjoy the fact that the hardest of my current responsibilities are chores and showing up to work on time.