Thanksgiving Break is a moment of reprieve: nearly everyone on campus goes home to enjoy the holiday with their families and a few moments away from campus and school. But all good things must come to and end, and Thanksgiving Break came to a quick and abrupt end. December is here and students are counting down the minutes until Christmas break. Sadly, there are a few weeks between Christmas and Thanksgiving that we do have to go to school. In the words of my suite-mate Grace, we are all on the struggle bus through the last few weeks: here are a few reasons the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas Break are the struggle.

1. The weather is finally changing.

When SMU students returned from Thanksgiving, the trees along the Boulevard were finally turning colors. The temperature is dropping and the winds are picking up. With the weather changing, cold, wet, and rainy days are becoming more and more common. On days where the cold wind is blowing mist in my face, the only thing I want to do is curl up in sweatpants and fuzzy socks in my dorm room, but alas I still have to hike across campus to make it to my 8 AM classes.

2. Lab Practicals

Those two words strike fear into any science major or anyone who has gotten stuck in a lab science course. Taking a chemistry test or quiz is stressful. Completing a lab that creates toxic gas if you do not set the apparatus up correctly is stressful. Having an hour and a half to complete 8 pages of problems, and a complete lab with calculations? That sounds like the perfect way to wrap up a semester where every Sunday and Monday night has been dedicated to completing prelabs with my partner and roommate.

3. Hell week

When a professor acknowledges that it is in fact, "hell week," you know it has arrived. In the final week of classes, many students find themselves with multiple tests, quizzes, papers, and presentations each worth a sizable chunk of their grade all piling up at once. This is not including the cloud that is finals hovering over the entire campus, waiting to strike.

4. Homesickness

The times I miss my family and being home are the times right after I have seen them and been home. It is so easy to fall out of your everyday campus routine and back into your home, mom cooked dinner and playing on the floor with your pets routine. Knowing that 7 days ago I was cuddled up with a dog and blanket rather than sitting at my desk in the middle of a ten page research paper only makes me miss it more.

5. Running out of clean sweats/leggings

If this is not the definition of the struggle, I do not know what is. No I am not ready to get up and face the world: why else would I be wearing old grey sweatpants with a logo for a college I do not even go to on them? In the middle of hell week, there isn't time for laundry. I'm lucky if I had time to check and see if the shirt and pants I grabbed matched, nevertheless stalk the laundry room for an open washer.

6. Everyone is going to formals

It's the end of the semester: the perfect time for frats/sororities to hold formals. Everyone gets dressed up, has dinner, and goes and dances it out for a while. Well not everyone. Sometimes you are the person who gets to party it out at the formal, and sometimes you are the person who has watched an entire season of Gilmore Girls and ate Easy Mac and some peanut butter with a spoon for dinner today. Friends wearing formal dresses? Me wearing sweatpants.

7. Leaving your bed gets exponentially harder

Every time you think leaving your window open at night is a good idea, you regret it the next morning. You are a burrito of warmth and nothing is going to get you out of this bed. Until you realize it's 7:45, you have a presentation at 8, and your class is a ten minute walk away. Bye bye burrito.

8. The pressure to buy things is high: your wallet? Not so high...

Christmas gifts? Christmas decorations? Christmas themed snacks? Christmas candy? Holiday flavored Starbucks? I want it all. My bank account says slow down or you won't be able to afford gas to drive home for Christmas.

9. If you have to eat another dining hall sandwich, you are going to throw it at someone.

I have eaten the same food every day since August. The sandwich bar seemed like it has some great variety... In August. I have since eaten so many wraps, flatbreads, sandwiches....

10. November/December is prime Netflix release time

The Crown? The new Gilmore Girls special? Fuller House Season 2? They sound great. Would I know? No. And why not? Because....

11. FINALS

This is pretty self explanatory. 30% of my grade? I'm going to cry.