_Kurtis Dunlap is a fifth-year senior at MU. He is an English major. He writes about student life as an opinion columnist for The Maneater._
The week that so many people fear is almost here: Finals are just beyond the horizon.
Although finals week leads to overconsumption of caffeine, way too many hours spent in the library and last-minute cramming sessions, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Winter break is the reward, a well-deserved one, that students get for making it through finals week. It is by far the best of the breaks we get.
When you go home for winter break, you aren’t really expected to get a job like during the summer. You get to lay around, sleep in late and eat whatever you want on your parents’ dime. Winter break is the perfect length. It’s too short to go out and get a job and just long enough so you can recharge and relax from an overload of homework, tests and papers.
When you go home for winter break, your parents show how much they’ve missed you by treating you the best they ever could. They want to cook for you, they want to do your laundry, and they pretty much do anything you want to do. Because the break isn’t that long, they want to cram all the parenting they’ve missed during time you’ve been away into a short window, which results in our responsibilities amounting almost to zero.
Going home for Christmas break is the time of year that I look forward to the most. You get to catch up with friends from high school and see family members that you maybe haven’t seen since summer. Winter break is just long enough for you to spend time with family, but it is also short enough that you can come home, see your family and leave. You have the ability to avoid family drama while still seeing your loved ones.
The holiday season is the happiest time of the year: lights on houses, carolers in the streets and gingerbread men baking in the oven. No other season is like the holiday season, and not having to deal with homework and tests is just icing on the Christmas cookies.
Going home for winter break can also be a little turbulent. You want to see as many people as you can, but sometimes you find yourself being stretched so thin that you don’t have time to just sit and relax. You also get to see all your old high school friends, which could be a good or bad thing.
Winter break is almost here, and it couldn’t come at a better time. Finals week is the last hurdle that stands between us and a home-cooked meal. All we can do is buckle down, get those papers in and ace all those tests; then, we are off to enjoy the best time of the year.
