Thanksgiving break is the epitome of all breaks. Because it is near the end of the semester, most professors tend to cram all due dates and tests to either right before or right after the holiday. This can cause a great load of stress on, us, college students, which is why we tend to value the week we get off for Thanksgiving so highly. What’s worse, however, is when you have to return back from your vacation and face reality. Here are some realizations every student has when they return from Thanksgiving break:

You realize what a true luxury dishwashers are.

Words cannot even express how great it was to just rinse your dish and put it in the dishwasher after using it. If you, by the rare chance, are lucky enough to have a dishwasher with you at college, then count your blessings. However, if you are among the unlucky ones, then you are now forced to either stick to paper plates, which is just horrible for the environment, or return to the pain of having to constantly wash dishes every time you use them…such a struggle.

You have to do your own laundry again.

How nice it was having your laundry magically disappear every time it was added to the dirty clothes basket…now no matter how much you beg your roommates, no one is going to wash your clothes for you.

You have to set an alarm clock.

This one hits me the hardest. Instead of waking up to the warm smell of your mom’s delicious French toast, you are forced out of bed to turn off the annoying buzz on your alarm clock. Not waking up to the aroma of your mom’s cooking can be really rough the first morning after returning from break because, trust me, it is much easier to get up for homemade breakfast than your usual morning go-to of stale cereal and expired milk.

Not to mention, your personal chef is gone.

No more home cooked dinners. No more warm grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch or tasty homemade chocolate chip cookies for dinner. Gone are the days of hearing “dinner’s ready” and running downstairs to a delicious meal. Now you are forced to return to cooking for yourself or, more than likely, just sticking to Pop-tarts for dinner.

Back to reality...

As hard as it may be, once you return to school you can no longer spend the majority of your day lounging around the house in your pajamas and watching TV. I know after viewing endless marathons of Keeping Up With The Kardashians you may feel like Kim K, but you aren’t and, unfortunately, you actually have to graduate college.

And with that, you instantly remember the ridiculous amount of homework that you put off all week.

You cringe a little inside when you think of your life for the next two weeks: all-nighters in the library, living off of coffee and bagels. Curse those professors who assigned research papers and projects that are all due the week before finals.

On the bright side, only two more weeks until winter break!