The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/winter-break/)
While the University has fully returned to in-person instruction for this fall semester, the Cornell School of Continuing Education will continue to offer courses completely online for the approaching winter semester.
After 10 weeks of uninterrupted classes — with only one day off to break up a semester riddled with Zoom fatigue and burnout — students are eager to finally have some much-anticipated time off.
Almost seven months after the abrupt transition to online school and the mass exodus of Cornell students back to their hometowns in March, many students are reluctant to once again retreat into isolation as Thanksgiving break approaches.
While America pretends that turkey is edible every Thanksgiving, my hometown friends and I unapologetically devour plates of delicious home-fried chicken. Last week, we perched ourselves on the familiar living room couch, cheered as we watched the Cowboys lose and grasped ketchup bottles in-hand: a refreshing tradition that started long before college. Back then, what I now revere as my hometown traditions were the standard. So, by the time I visited home over this break, after planning my days and nights in advance, after hyping-up “the return” for weeks, it all seemed contrived, almost artificial — canned like the gravy we weren’t eating. I felt out of place at home for the first time.
113 students have received funding for this winter break alone. While the grant itself provides a maximum amount of $1,500, the average amount students received this winter was $660, said Joy Das M.P.A. ’18, the program manager for student leadership programming.
As an environmental and sustainability sciences major, you would think that I would be against global warming. I understand that I am not from California or the South, but I’m tired of this winter after two decades on the East Coast. Of course I am concerned about the dysfunction and distribution of traumatic weather patterns due to anthropogenic activity, but this late winter and transition back to campus have been rough. This spring semester, I’ve come back with visions of professional development and academic success, but in the face of bone-chilling winds and hazardous slopes, my energy tank remains low. There are, however, some things I have employed to remain marginally functional.
Dear Second Semester,
I didn’t expect I’d be writing to you so soon. Honestly, you keep sneaking up on me at the most inconvenient of times, like while I’m basking in the sun and reading that book I said I’d finish last year, or watching Netflix for the first time in forever. Don’t you know how to leave someone in peace? Reuniting with you is never the way I expect it to be. Last night I hopped off the plane, still carrying the Californian breeze in my suitcase and the smile of someone who finally ate In-n-Out, and you greeted me with a 20-degree hug and a huge pile of snow in my face.