Being home for the summer is the strangest feeling. At the end of spring semester, all I wanted to do was go home. That idea is what got me through exam time. I swear I was so excited about it that I had dreams about my mom’s cooking. But now I’ve been home for two weeks, and I am ready to race back to school again.
Falling back into my old routine at home almost makes me feel like school was just summer camp, something just outside of real life. I was busy all the time, with friends, or work, or clubs and now I’m just sitting. A lot of people quell this uneasiness and boredom by getting an internship or a job — some even take summer classes — but these things never take up the whole summer. So, we’re left to sit. And wait. And do nothing.
Again, I’ve only been home for two weeks and I’m already losing my mind. All of the sudden, I have parents to answer to again, I have my lovable (if not extremely irritating) siblings and all of my friends are scattered across the country (however most of them are in NOVA, let’s be honest). But in the end, I think it’s the stillness that’s going to drive me insane first.
There’s just not enough to do. I thought maybe my mom could help me out, so I tried explaining this to her once. That was the wrong idea … she just gave me a bunch of chores to do around the house. Let me tell you, that’s a mistake I only made once. I still have a few friends at home, and I see them when I can, but somehow our schedules never seem to match up right. It’s a never-ending cycle of “does Tuesday work for you?” “No, I can do Thursday, though.” “Oh no, I can’t do Thursday.”
I would honestly rather have summer break cut in half and spread the rest out through the year. There are definitely times during the semester I could use some extra time. Plus, in terms of retaining information we’ve learned throughout the year, this makes more sense. I’m pretty sure I actively lose every scrap of everything I’ve learned over the summer.
Of course, summer break has its upsides: we have time to go on vacation, time to do other things that interest us which we might not have time for at school and visit with family. However, I think the real reason our summer break is so long is because they want us to be excited for school again. By the time the end of second semester rolls around, I’m effectively a zombie who wants nothing more than food and sleep. By giving us such a long break, not only do we have time to heal ourselves, but we also have time to get bored enough that we forget about the trauma we suffered at the hands of finals, and school seems like a great option to cure the boredom. Spoiler alert: the same thing will happen every year.
So in the end, I guess having a long summer serves a purpose, I’m motivated enough to get my GPA up in the fall so I can coast in the spring.
