At first, we think IU is doing us a favor by giving us a week off for Thanksgiving break. After all, most people have class up until Tuesday or Wednesday and at that point, with traffic from hell, it's really not much of a break.
Until you realize how easy it is to go crazy while in your childhood bedroom when all your friends are still at school. Here's a few activities to keep you sane until our return to Bloomington.
1. Look in all your drawers and find the weird things you've saved from your childhood
I've found old cellphones, including chargers which has allowed me to read conversations from 2010-11. It's hilarious. I've also found some old essays, which are borderline shameful. Today, I found my stack of newspapers from my senior year of high school when I was on the staff and then realized why print journalism is dead. It's because of me.
2. Watch something that's not mind-numbing
If you just keep watching Bob's Burgers you're gonna feel awful in about two days. So watch something that's interesting! My suggestion is Dear Jack. It's on Netflix. It will make you cry, in a good way. Text me when you've watched it so we can chat about it.
3. Play the Wikipedia game
Search any word or phrase on Wikipedia and click the first link in the article and it will eventually bring you to the "philosophy" page every.single.time.
4. Read a book
When was the last time you read a book for pleasure? Lucky for you, you're home, have time, and most likely have a stack of books somewhere. Choose one. Read it. Maybe read another one! Who knows? The world is your oyster, bookworm.
5. Read something
Ok no books in your house? Weird. Lucky for you, there's a website called Longreads that complies the best #longreads on the Internet. You can browse by category, and there's enough for pretty much anyone to find something that interests them. I've read some of the best journalism on this website, 7/7 recommend.
6. Podcasts!
Was Serial the last podcast you listened to? You're missing out! Podcasts are awesome. You can listen to them when you work out, when you're trying to sleep (much better for you than falling asleep staring at a screen), cooking food, staring at a wall LITERALLY WHENEVER. Some of my current favorite podcasts are Song Exploder, where a band explains the writing and recording process of a song (artists include Best Coast, Death Cab for Cutie, Toro y Moi, My Morning Jacket etc.), Lena Dunham's new series called "Women of the Hour," and of course "All Songs Considered." If you love history, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is the most intense-but-in-a-good-way audio adventure you will ever go on.
7. Go for a run or a hike or a walk or a bike ride
Explore nature! Go for a stroll with your dog. You're going to be consuming an unholy amount of calories come Thursday, be nice to your body now.
8. Sleep
Finals are coming, get your sleep now.
9. Clean your desktop
Is your desktop a mess? Screenshots covering your background? Do you even know what your background is? Delete the screenshots you don't need anymore, make some folders, maybe even color coordinate them! This is actually an extremely time consuming, yet cathartic activity. Plus, it's super beneficial to delete old things to stop your laptop from slowing down, and organization is never a bad thing.
10. Brush up on your current events
If you have some opinionated relatives coming over for Thanksgiving, it's inevitable that your dinner conversation will quickly devolve to the current state of the world. Between the election and ISIS and global warming and the unfortunate rising tide of xenophobia and and sharp increase in heroin overdoses and guns and the impeding tech bubble and self-driving cars and if you could go back in time, would you kill baby Hitler and THE GOVERNMENT IS SPYING ON US TURN YOUR BLUETOOTH OFF, there is literally no possible way this conversation could end well unless...no there cannot possibly be any positive outcome. Be informed, get your facts straight so at least you won't be cast away as "another narcissistic Millennial who's too busy sexting and taking selfies to care about the world."
