We’ve all experienced the grief that comes with the end of winter break, from cozy nights in with your hometown friends and family to stuffy lecture halls, where the sound of coughing students echoes around the room every five seconds.
Winter on campus is great in December, if you don’t include the whole stressing about finals thing, because you get to look forward to almost an entire month off from school, and the holidays, of course.
January, however, is another story. Not only do we have to wait until March for spring break and the next bit of relaxation, but we have to worry about freezing temperatures and the introduction of the more tedious semester of the school year. Don’t worry, though, I have your back. Here’s how I make it through the most boring time of the year:
Stay warm
Many of the students here at FSU are from Florida, and therefore, aren’t very used to chilly weather. Now, you northerners have to humor me for a second here because I know to you, 30 degrees Fahrenheit is nothing.
Most don’t understand how important gloves are until your fingertips go numb, not to mention the tops of your ears. It’s super important to keep your limbs bundled up, because they don’t receive the same amount of body heat as your core does when it’s cold out. So, if you’ve noticed it’s especially annoying for you to be outside during January, maybe invest in some earmuffs and fuzzy socks.
It also wouldn’t hurt to stock up on multiple pairs of thick jeans as well (you can thank me later).
avoid getting sick
I feel especially qualified on this topic, given that I’ve managed to survive almost an entire school year, with possibly the most sickness-prone roommate in all of Tallahassee, without contracting anything.
It’s difficult to avoid contact with illness when you’re constantly around people on campus, especially during the colder months. It might be a cliché, but I get into the habit of washing my hands frequently.
You don’t realize how often you come into contact with contaminated surfaces until you witness someone sneeze onto a door handle and then immediately open it with their bare hands… something I actually encountered already this semester.
I also proactively avoid getting sick instead of simply treating the symptoms once they appear. I sleep well, keep up with cleaning my room and objects that my roommate and I share, and most importantly, I keep a stocked-up bin of medicine in my room ready, so I don’t have to go out and buy stuff once I already come down with something.
Keep motivation up
With the combination of the end of winter break and the start of the Spring semester, it can be hard to get back into the swing of things, especially when this semester has fewer random days off than the Fall semester did. Still, it’s important to start the new year off with a good foundation and set yourself up for success.
Get together with your friends and have fun study sessions, or make new friends in your classes so that you can at least complain about the workload together, if that’s something that helps you. It certainly feels cathartic to me! Honestly, it’s just important to give yourself some grace at the end of the day. You’ve gotten this far already, so make sure to treat yourself every so often.
Winter is a strange season; it contains the most excitement of the year, followed by a universally disliked part of the year, so consider yourself lucky if you make it to spring with a sound mind, and pat yourself on the back. You deserve it.
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