Winter break usually means it’s time for my annual adoption of a nocturnal lifestyle. I wander around the house like a ghost in pajamas to play video games and mess around on the Internet until strange hours of night, then hiss at the sun once it finally rises. How’s that for happy holidays?
It’s nice to indulge after the end to a tough semester and year, especially under such festive conditions and glittering lights, and I manage to reach new levels of hedonism each year. I know I’m enjoying myself once I have no idea what day of the week it is and it’s a struggle to remember any of the content I was cramming just a dozen days ago— so I guess you could say that I’m not enjoying myself this year.
I’ve got a big test coming up in just a few weeks, and I’m going to need to let slip the dogs of war for it.
It’s my first time self-studying— or even just plain doing work over winter break— and it is daunting. Terrifying. Exhausting, especially since I had just freed myself from the hell that was finals. The grind never ends, but maybe that can be a good thing.
Getting things done and staying on track (like keeping up with all of my Odyssey deadlines, yikes!) during this time of year is a challenge that’s foreign, but not really unwelcome to me. It’s exciting, almost, to have a single goal to work towards without the routine that school provides. I’m trying to stay positive just so I won’t be completely overwhelmed, and I take breaks often. I indulge a little bit in my old winter-break vices. Every now and then, I’ll check Snapchat or Instagram to see artfully cropped pictures of my friends, framed by famous landmarks and sparkling lights, sipping hot chocolate and smiling with their friends.
Jealousy is only the first problem.
Then I feel awful for excusing myself from almost all social events I’ve been invited to, and I’m terrified that people think my self-imposed exile is an easy excuse to avoid them. But I know myself well enough that I know I don’t have the will to keep a productive mindset if I start to relax. I suppose I’m studying to improve my discipline, too.
New Years is a convenient reset to make positive changes to my life, but it’s because of that that I always wait until January to set those changes in motion. It supposedly takes 21 days to develop a habit, so getting a head start now ideally means that I am setting 2017 up for success.
I’ll still be going back to school in January with my poor circadian rhythm confused beyond repair, as per tradition, and maybe a few newly adopted good habits, too.
