As students returned from Christmas break, some of their first semesters started off easily. Not all students got extremely sick the first week of class, broke their phone randomly or fell behind in major classes. However, if your semester started by getting out of the wrong side of the bed into a puddle of cement there are some pretty simple ways to bounce back from a hellish week.
Readjust yourself to school life.
This could mean you try and fix your sleeping schedule, put EVERYTHING into your planner for your classes or actually just rearranging your dorm for the new semester. A little change in your approach to school as a whole, or in your surroundings, can help improve your room. Go to Walmart and purchase a planner or some cute Valentine’s day décor to add some fun to your room. If you’re thrifty too, you could get your friends together and create bullet journals or make decorations for each other’s rooms. Bringing all your friends together and doing something that will benefit all of you will really help your mood.
Host a game night.
Grab your friends, some board/video games and just have fun with it. Pop some popcorn, and enjoy the company of your friends – and the feeling of victory as you crush your enemies in a ‘fun’ game of Monopoly. If any of your group is fortunate enough to own a gaming console, put in any game and share in the experience. For single player games you can pass off the controller when you die, and for multiplayer games you can all take turns to reach the end victory. Getting everyone together and laughing as you all keep dying at the SAME PART will be enough to blow off any stress you may have accumulated over the week.
Realize that it’s just the first week.
There are (roughly) fifteen weeks in a semester, meaning that you have 14 more weeks to bounce back. Will each day be perfectly easy? Not at all, but it will be doable. Getting through a rough week is challenging but realizing that not every week will be rough makes it so much more rewarding. No one enjoys going through a rough week but surrounding yourself with friends and getting your semester back on track will help you feel so much better about the weeks ahead.
Tough weeks happen, it can happen by some random occurrence or it could be something that you know you could have prevented. Take your time over the weekend to regroup your thoughts and get back into the swing of things. Not every week will be terrible, and one hard week will pass. You just have to keep moving forward.
Photo by: LaShauna Bell