Schools Out and it’s Time to Reflect on Our Bad Choices!

The first semester of 2017 has come to a close ladies and gentleman. You may now set down your pens, burn your $100 textbooks, and snuggle up with a nice mug of self-reflection.

During the time of “Winter Break,” students are given the opportunity to sit at home watching endless re-runs of The Office, reading half-way through books before giving up, and staring at the wall with a look of disgust and horror because their brains keep producing abominable images of their previous mistakes.

When on this journey, you will find yourself, time and time again, circling back to the same old question: “Why the f*ck did I do that?”

When sitting in your bed midway through the day- still deciding if you want to get dressed-  you’ll find yourself having unprovoked visions of the past.

Like that time you threw up in your shoe after a party, but still wore it on the train; Or the other time when you had microwave Mac n Cheese with two pickles and a Cherry Coke.

There are sudden, disastrous scenes that playback in your braincase over and over making you cringe into another dimension. Similar to the feeling of nails on a chalkboard or having a sex dream about your stuffed animal, prompting you to immediately throw it out the window the next morning and fatally hitting a bystander on the street.

I always wondered why the college systems allowed their students to be released into the wild for nearly a month while the winter winds moderate winds (thanks, Global Warming) stormed in, but now I realize it’s for the benefit of the student. For if we did not have the time to look back on all the parties we blacked out at or the inappropriate comments we made in class, then we would simply continue to do them and that isn’t good for anyone (especially me since I got a fungus after wearing my Barf-Adidas.™)

It is a strategically placed time for the young Liberal Arts Padawan to journey into the land of the forgotten and find bits and pieces of why they have been placed in the category of “socially-awkward” and get comments such as “No, I don’t want to hang out with you, you’ve got a creepy smile.”

Remember when you sat in a pee-filled CTA seat? Remember how people warned you beforehand and you still sat down and just nervously laughed?

Remember when you knew someone from the building across from you could see you picking your nose? Remember how you kept doing it anyway and now you may have to face them on the streets someday?

Remember when you got so ragingly mad because you thought someone stole your eggs, but you had just forgotten that you had an extra one the morning prior? Remember what an asshole you were?

Remember? Do you remember all these sinful deeds that are now forever locked in your memory cabinet and will never spoil as you age, but rather get more and more potent and vivid with trembling cringy-ness?

Now, it is Winter Break, the time to relive everything to it’s fullest light. With no deadlines, no homework, and nobody you really need to talk to (because you didn’t really have any friends in your hometown now that you think about it), you can dive into the deep end of your agony to relive every regrettable moment you’ve ever lived.

This is a time to suffer. Both for yourself and for our Lord and Savior, Danny Devito.

And once the second-coming (A.K.A. 2nd semester) has arrived, you will be reborn. Your skin shall be of porcelain, your mouth shall rain words of wisdom upon your new class, and you will think about maybe just going barefoot this time on the train and risking getting them cut up by broken glass.

Enjoy it, kids, this is the time you really start to learn a thing or two.