Fall semester could not have ended any sooner for me. As soon as I bubbled in my last multiple choice answer on my last exam, I bolted to my professor, handed in my test, and drove back home as if my life depended on it. Well, my life did depend on it, to a certain degree. After a full three months of dedicated rigor to studying, meeting new friends, and trying out new experiences, I was more than glad to have a month to recover my mental and physical state. At first, I could not have enjoyed my time off more. Whether it be catching up with high school friends, sleeping 10 hours a day, and enjoying actually half decent food, I was ecstatic to stray away from anything school related. Combining this fact with how I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, I thought I reached my ideal version of a break.

Little did I know at that time that I was actually setting myself up for failure and that I was blinded by the fun and rest I accumulated throughout the month break. During this time I eventually became accustomed to doing essentially no work at all. Of course, the transition from school to break is easy enough. However, as the break came to an end, I never realized how hard going from the break to school was. While I had breaks in high school, those breaks rarely lasted any longer than 10 days. Thus, it did not feel as if I was undergoing a massive change in my recent habits. However, being that the break at Rutgers is a month, shifting myself back to studious, focused Dustin form was a lot harder.

For one, my sleep went from 10 hours to 6-7 hours, which was massively difficult for my body to adjust. In addition, it took a strong effort to be able to generally concentrate on anything without zoning out and to motivate myself to do anything productive. Essentially, the complacency I gained through the break was not something and still is something I cannot shave off easily. Although time will tell as to whether I can return to the fall version of Dustin soon, there is something that I did learn: that it's much harder to climb back up than one would imagine.