Thanksgiving break seems like it would be the most relaxing experience in the world for any college student. They get to enjoy home-cooked meals. Somebody else is cleaning up after them and doing their laundry. They're away from campus and back home with all of their family and the friends that they've known their entire lives. However, it never fails that Thanksgiving break falls at the busiest time of the year for all college students, forcing them to return home resembling something closer to zombies than little kids on Christmas. Here's a fun little list of all of the emotions that college students feel when it's time for them to finally head home for a little while.
1. Excitement
The initial response of any student in college at the prospect of coming home is excitement. There's always a ton of joy, because of all of the perks that it hints at. You get food that wasn't sitting out on a buffet line for hours and you have a comfortable bed. You get to blare your music as loud as you want and sing along at the top of your lungs with nobody to judge you. And you get to sleep in for as long as you want, because there's no classes to be rushing off to. Automatically, the prospect of coming home for a week-long break has college students splitting their faces in half from a smile they just can't contain.
2. Exhaustion
Apparently it's some universal rule that college professors overwork students right before Thanksgiving. It's really hard to be excited when you're drowning in your work load, because you've got a 5-page paper, a major project and a stimulation to prepare for all right before break as well as your usual work load for other classes and a 10-page research paper due almost immediately after you get back from break. It's impossible to try to get ahead, because it would require getting approximately three weeks ahead and ain't nobody got the time for that.
3. Depression
It's awesome to get to go home and see your family, because you've been away from them for months. It's equally as exciting to see all of your friends from high school and share all of your exciting stories with them. But, it's just as awful to know that you're leaving all of your college friends for a week. You have to say goodbye to your roommate and go back to the solitude of your bedroom at home, knowing that you're going to fall asleep and wake up without somebody a few feet away. And as weird as it sounds to say that you're going to be sad to miss the people that you see every day, it's reality.
4. Overwhelmed
There's just so much to do. By the time you get home on Tuesday, you're exhausted from classes and the trip back home, meaning that you're going to request your favorite take-out and pass out almost immediately. On Wednesday, you're going to have to jam-pack in plans with friends because, when else are you going to get to see them? Oh, and you have to run around and help your family prepare for Thanksgiving. Thursday is all about family and Friday doesn't even count because you're sleeping all day from shopping all night, and even when you're wide awake again, you can't go anywhere because Black Friday traffic is the worst. Saturday is your last day to really enjoy being home because come Sunday, you're back on the road.
5. Annoyance
You seriously love helping your grandma cook and shopping trips with your mom are always a good time, but when you only have 5 days at home (with one of those days involving travel) you don't want to fill up all of your time with your family. You want to enjoy time with your friends, as well. So, whenever you have to make an obligatory visit to a family member, you find yourself wondering why seeing them on Thanksgiving wasn't enough for them-and then hating yourself for being so awful towards your family immediately after.
6. Regret
You're always going to head back to school after Thanksgiving break remembering that you forgot to go and visit some family member who's been telling you how excited they are to see you since the day you moved in. And you will spend the entire three weeks between your return to school and the semester break feeling awful about forgetting to pay them a visit. On top of that, you're going to feel miserable about everything that you just didn't have the time to do.
7. Happiness
No matter what, though, you always feel happy at the end. Whether it was because your mom was bragging about your grades or your grandmother handed you a wad of cash before you started back to school or because your friends were marveling over how great you looked, there's something amazing about being back home and surrounded by people who haven't seen you in months, because they have a way of making you feel like you're the most important person in the world. And, that's always a good feeling. Besides, no matter how much you complain about it, home really is the happiest place in the world and you're always glad to head back there.
