When presented with any amount of free time, I revert to my go-to method of organizing my life –– a to-do list. Scribbled on napkins, haphazardly recorded in one of my many To-Do list apps on my phone or simply repeated over and over again under my breath to remember, these lists help me navigate the free moments of my day to milk every last minute. Based on my own experiences and the experiences of others, I have compiled this list of items to add to your own to-do list for a happier, healthier and more productive time away from school.
1. Refrain from falling too deep into the endless void of envy down which social media pushes me with photographs of others’ travels while I lay in bed, donning my cat-print onesie, sipping my chai,and catching up on my TV shows.
2. Resist the urge to succumb to my grandmother’s cooking for every meal so that my father does not have to roll me back onto campus.
3. Revive my workout “schedule” that I start, stop and modify every time I come home and return to school. Basically, establish a better and more sustainable work out schedule to allow that constant flow of endorphins. Man, did midterms add an extra layer of insulation to my body.
4. Keep going at my personal "Body Acceptance Agenda" so that I don’t always feel compelled to restrict my diet and feel the pressure to work out only to maintain a “socially acceptable” aesthetic. Body acceptance is about accepting the realities, possibilities, and limits of my body and changing only for reasons that I myself see fit, not for what others think.
5. Revise my plan to take down the patriarchy. 
6. Try not to accept defeat that my sleep-schedule is too far-gone to be saved, and attempt to regulate it once more.
7. Try not to feel too rich from my mere campus job salary and blow it all through online shopping.
8. Find and appreciate the hidden gems of this town so I don’t always complain about its deadbeat nature and think of myself as high and mighty for escaping it to a prestigious university in the city.
9. Set realistic goals to get ahead on academics. Try to fulfill at least half of these goals because the optimistic dreamer in me is always incapable of being realistic.
10. Feel and think more positively about where I am and what I am doing. I am grateful that I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity to return home, rest, relax, recharge and recuperate to attack the rest of the spring semester.
