Column:

Thanksgiving break hardly a break

By Dieter Kurtenbach

Published Dec. 1, 2008

My Thanksgiving break was anything but a break, and that's far too common for the proverbial MU student. Whether it is the travel to your parents' home and the probable subsequent travel to someone else's home for Thanksgiving day itself, in the few days we get for the break there is hardly any time to gain one's bearings. At points it even seems like the chaos of school is more relaxing than the chaos of family drama, endless travel, Black Wednesday and Black Friday.

But we weathered the storm and made it to the homestretch. Now: finals.

With one frantic break behind us and another looming beyond a daunting ridge, the real question many MU students and I are asking: Can we catch a (real) break?

Some schools go on fall break, but MU opts to pass on that opportunity. Instead we as students get that week of freedom added to our endlessly long winter break, culminating after and encompassing MLK day. This system follows all modern forms of logic, and it is very surprising that few schools do it similarly. But they don't, and besides the majority of summer and Thanksgiving, MU students are on a completely different schedule from most other students around the country, leaving us lonely and bored. Worst part is, we're powerless when it comes to changing it and SOL when it comes to living it.

Looking at the reality of these breaks reveals two things. The first is that the underclassmen are incapable of fending for themselves for an entire calendar year. They would gain too much weight, live through too much drama and basically go insane over the course of the 12 months. The mental and physical anguish is something I call the "freshman effect," and the breaks are a necessary move made by the university to combat the "freshman effect," regardless of their admission or denial of their motives or the "freshman effect" itself.

As you get older, wiser and more enlightened, you find that you embody the exact opposite effect of the "freshman effect." There is no warning to when this transition will happen, but you know when it does. It will be a clash of the ideas of self-reliance and dependency, and no one will win. After this happens, it seems like the only break you get are the ones when you don't have class and you don't have to live in your parents' basement because your room is now your mom's makeshift walk-in closet. Those breaks are few and far between, but oh so sweet.

The second thing we learn from breaks is that they suck timing-wise. Thanksgiving break gives you two weeks before finals, and winter break is longer than sin, leaving you bored as hell halfway through (not to mention the awkwardness that ensues from still being at your parents' house for a month). Spring break is either too cold or too late, and summer break, well, summer break isn't much of a break at all. After freshman year, it's work, class and a separate social calendar all rolled into one three-month stretch. Mainly, it's the same thing as fall and spring, only warmer. The allure is lost after the first time you do it, which explains why so many people stay the summer after sophomore year and beyond.

But we are left with them, and we try to get whatever joy we can find inside of them. There are redeeming qualities, no doubt, whether it is the makeshift high school reunions at parties or celebrating the holidays, and we all look forward to them, under some rationalization. I mean, the upcoming winter break will be well deserved when it does come around. The next few days (how about that for reality) will be tough and strenuous for most. It's a procrastination society and students are the best at filling the norm. Two weeks to get your stuff together and finish strong, right after a week without school - that's strenuous. Here's hoping we can all make it through.