My past blog posts have consisted primarily of school, work, and stressful situations. In realizing that all work and no play makes Steven a dull boy, I’m going to focus on writing about the fun I had over winter break.
After my stressful final in my algorithms course, I was liberated from all responsibilities. In fact, I had booked a flight to Texas for the first three weeks of winter break. There was a Bridges conference in Austin, TX that a friend and I were both going to. Turns out that my friend also lives in Texas so I stayed with her family over Christmas and the New Year’s. Let me just say I was hyped to go to Texas. I wanted to explore the Wild West of America. Gunslingers, cacti, and tumbleweeds galore I imagined; I would occasionally sing Sandy’s song from Spongebob Squarepants about going home; I was excited.
Well, I flew out from Boston and I got to Texas. It disappointed many of my expectations but satisfied all my hype. What I mean is, unfortunately there was no mass abundance of shootouts, cacti, and tumbleweeds, but there was a vast blue sky, beautiful plains, and deliciously generous portions of food. Let me just say, if one wants to experience America, one should go to Texas and find the heart of America there. Did I mention the gas was roughly a buck a gallon? So I spent three weeks in Texas and lived like a king. I mean like playing Fallout 4, eating good cheap food, using restrooms the size of my house in New York, and being chauffeured to eat more good cheap food. I had fun, maybe the most fun since I’ve started college. It was refreshing, awesome, enjoyable, and I really hope to go back sometime.
After Texas, I returned home to New York. It was rather short-lived as two days later, we went to Canada. I should mention though that I had participated in the $1.5 billion lottery craze. I should further mention that my parents bought an absurd amount of plays (like 25) whereas I thought I only needed a chance to win and bought one; thus, I won a 4x payout and my parents won nothing. If that last clause didn’t make sense, it’s more likely my sense of humor than your understanding so don’t worry about it (a pity chuckle would be appreciated though). Anyways, we went to Canada for another week to visit family there. I ate more good food and rested the entire week.
Those last two paragraphs represent my winter break. Looking back on it, I didn’t really do much but it was fulfilling. In fact, I had gained about 10 lbs of fat over winter break and, although it has encouraged me to exercise more this semester, I’m not concerned about it. In fact, that weight gain represents me eating happily and without worry, unlike my prevalent loss of appetite due to stress during school.
So what did I forget? I forgot to mention my goals for winter break (no really, I don’t plan/edit my posts and just remembered that I had forgotten these). My goals for winter break were to finish two (hard) online classes, prepare for spring classes, apply for more scholarships, exercise and get fit, and apply for more internships. I practically did none of those. And I felt amazing at the end of break. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that there are times for working and there are times for taking breaks. When we become busy, we as people tend to mix these two times. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but if you’ve never tried separating the two I would really recommend it.
Take a break, have some fun, gain some weight, try something crazy (and hopefully legal). Then go back to enjoying the hard work that you do.