The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/break/)
On the eve of Thanksgiving, this Cornell senior and seasoned Friendsgiving veteran wants to dispense some advice on how to throw a fun, delicious and drama-free Friendsgiving party. Here are some of my core tips:
Surprisingly, I was incredibly more productive on Saturday and Sunday. I finished my graduate school applications, completed readings for almost the next two weeks and studied for my prelim. By truly taking a day off, my other days were more efficient than if I had tried to work consistently through the whole weekend. I can only think of how my other birthdays might have been different had I viewed a full day off as so consequential to a coming successful week.
Although some students felt that February Break was too short to provide a sufficient breather from school, other Cornellians seized the four day break to travel and relax.
As February Break comes to an end, first-year students find that their period of relaxation was filled with a heavy workload.
Every interlude between semesters starts and ends the same: with the stress of doing it right. Coming face to face in class and on campus means tiny talk about big plans. That’s something I understood after just my first season of breaks, and in anticipation, I’ve been sharpening my reflexes to kick away questions of how I spent it — like a single dollar I couldn’t stretch.
I still don’t know how to break like a Cornellian, people whose pauses come only with the promise we’ll get busy again. So many of my pauses have left things in a pile to be picked up where they were left, a load no less precarious or heavy. Even without the rigor of academics or internships, relaxation can’t find its way in.
Picture this: It’s 10:55 a.m., which means that the end of your third Tuesday lecture is only five minutes away. You’ve processed maybe 30% of the information thrown at you this morning. Maybe. All the content is scribbled down somewhere in your notebook anyway; you’ll get to it later, but definitely before your test on Friday (right?). “It’s going to be one of those weeks, huh?” you think to yourself. Your leg starts twitching. This time, though, it’s not from the stress.
This year seems to feel no different than any other academic year we had. Except for the fact that it’s characterized by a very different reality from 2019 – a global pandemic, a worsening climate crisis and global economic crises. I was swallowed as a sophomore and spit back out as a senior, and I’m still trying to process the past year. I find myself a little more emotional than usual – both missing home, friends and family in sunny California. And yet clumsily trying to absorb as much of the treasured time I have with my friends in an arrangement that seems unlike the ones I will encounter after May.
The relentless pursuit of academic perfection has been weighing heavily on my mind since we returned from fall break. My Fall Break was spent in the Adirondacks without touching or even thinking about the piles of schoolwork I could’ve been doing. After all, it was Fall Break, so I took a break.
Studying for exams, running ultramarathons, watching movies and visiting friends are just a few of the ways that Cornell students spent the first fall break in two years.
I don’t feel entirely left behind by the administration. After a class did poorly on a prelim one of my professors is looking into changing how the class functions a little to address what might be lacking. My academic advisor reached out to see how the semester was going and if I needed anything. However, the thing I need is something they can’t give me, or at least have decided they won’t give me. More than anything I need a BREAK and the scary part is . . . a break isn’t really coming.