The Pre-Holiday Plan

Every year, before I head home for breaks, I always do the same things. First off, I handle all of my laundry. By handle my laundry I really mean that I let it pile up for the few weeks prior to break. Why would I do my laundry? I am heading home and I won't have to see this place for at least a few days, right? Secondly, I handle the dishes. By that I also mean, I let them all pile for the same basic reasoning. Then I let things pile up in my room, assignments pile up that are due after break and I become extra lazy in general. This all would be fine, if you are the type of person that does homework on break and enjoys coming home to a shit hole of a room after break. However, I am neither of those people. On break I enjoy eating tons of food, drinking beer with friends, and forgetting to do my readings and assignments. This presents a pressing issue - nothing is accomplished before or during break. Therefore leaving me with piles of work, laundry and dishes to deal with after break is over (something very depressing to return to).

So I propose a fix to this issue - the pre-holiday anti-disaster plan. Sit down a week or two before Thanksgiving break, or Spring break, and make a list. This list should start with all of the things that you need to keep up with or deal with before you go home - laundry, dishes, cleaning, readings, etc. Not to be mistaken with a day planner, this is an extended list of very specific tasks. Then write down everything that will be due in the final weeks of school. This can be exams, papers, or projects. There is nothing more depressing than coming back to school and realizing you have more work than expected. By writing it all down, nothing will be unexpected. Not only that, you could start working on these assignments a week early (since we all know you won't do it during the break). Then when you finally make it back to school after break - life will be stress free. People don't realize how good of a feeling that is - two weeks left stress free. You have no dishes or laundry, no assignments sneaking up on you and you have a plan to finish all of your work - post holiday disaster prevented.

I also want to take a moment to say - PLEASE DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE!!!! For sooooo many reasons... Drinking and driving can lead to so many life ending results. I have friends that have received DUIs and they are horrible. You can't drive for a year a more, your insurance becomes impossibly expensive and you may lose your job or job opportunities in the future. All of these are really, really life changing and they are the best case scenario of a drunken driving incident. You could kill someone or kill someone else. I know that everyone has heard this 100 times over and I am not going to drag it out talking about it - I will just toss you a few statistics. In 2008 there were 37,000 driving fatalities with 13,000 of them being alcohol related. That means 1/3 of the driving related fatalities are alcohol related as well - a pretty remarkable statistic. http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html can lead you to a few more stats, none of them good. So when you go out drinking, please bring a DD or just sleep there, or get a hotel. I hate sleeping in a bed other than my own as much as the next guy, but in the end it is worth it to possibly save a life (possibly even your own).