You fill out that last Scantron bubble, hand in your papers, and skip out the door. At last, finals are over, first semester is in the books, and winter break is about to begin.

All your clothes and accouterments are jammed in your suitcase, you triple-checked your room to make sure that everything is in place and spotless, and only the plane/car ride awaits. You need this break, everyone needs this break. The stress, anxiety, and overall wear and tear on your mind combined with the jarring voyage of a first semester at college definitely calls for a nice, long break back home.

Some parts of going back home are better than others, but the best parts, loom over some aspects of college. For example, you wake up, walk downstairs, and there is food in the fridge, food that you a) don't have to pay for, b) bought or made by the finest chefs and food connoisseurs you know (Mom or Dad), and c) whose proximity is unbeatable.

Plus, Christmas is right around the corner, and you can hear the "Jingle Bell Rock" blasting in the kitchen all the way from your bedroom. Tis the season, my friends. The family parties start rolling in, along with all the food (desserts) you can eat. Maybe you've gained a pound or 10 from all this food (I know I have). They're everywhere! Cakes, cookies, chocolate-covered this, caramel-centered that, but the jackpot, the crème de la crème, the epitome of desserts are those Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. And the frosting, aka the nectar of the gods, just leaves you in this Pillsbury nirvana. After you have one of those cinnamon rolls, you need one of those "Men in Black" memory sticks to erase my memory, or else I'd eat them every single day for the rest of my life.

Anyways, Christmas comes and goes, the decorations go up and go down, and maybe we'll see a good friend or two from back home. You call them up, and set out to meet them for dinner or what have you. Some of us, like myself, come to the realization that it is just not the same anymore. The whole flow and dynamic of the conversations seem foreign to you, or something in the air or environment just doesn't feel right. The truth is that people change and so do you.

Understand that our character changes in accordance with the concepts of catabolism and anabolism, breaking down and building up. An example can be exercising or lifting weights, you are breaking down the muscle through a certain regiment of exercises, and then resting that muscle to build it up so that it can be stronger! This naturally happens to our character—if it didn't, you'd be acting like and hanging out with the same people you did in kindergarten. As humans, we evolve and adapt. We all know people that act immaturely, or grown adults that are still trapped in their teenage bodies, both laughing at the same stupid crap; real adults just don't have time for it. We all break down or deconstruct old ways, relationships, rituals, that were once resourceful. Who you now are, who you will be, and what you set out to do in life, your vision, if you will, as you all set out to conquer a second semester of college—you may not have time or hold the same interest in the same things or people you were with in high school.

Look at your new college friends. Are there any differences between the two? For me, my friends in college probably are not on the same frequency as my high school friends. Why? It doesn't mean either group are bad people, it means that my interests in people have changed, I have changed. We all may still cherish our high school friends, it's OK to still hang out with them, but college is the now. As the great Master Oogway ("Kung Fu Panda") once said, "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift; that is why it is called the present." Do not live in the past, or you will be missing what is going on right now.

We are on a transition, a very big transition, and now that we've got a break, we come to the realization of how some of our old, high school ways can no longer help us become the strongest version of ourselves in who we are becoming. Maybe you've seen it already on your break. Old high school friends aren't the same, the basic dynamic of being back home feels different or uneasy, or the interactions between parents or siblings "just feels different." (Hint: You've changed, my friend.) A whole semester at college, away from the stagnation of home, changes everyone, whether we like it or not. Like the iPhone, and how it continues to be reconfigured and updated, so too, does our character, and as Apple releases more iPhones, apps, or aspects of the latter, iPhone are thrown out because they no longer hold much use.

So this new year, 2016, on winter break, think of these two questions. What parts have to be thrown out or taken back to the drawing board to then be reconstructed or resurrected? And what new habits, rituals, people should be implemented into your life as you head into the new year/new semester?