whistle while you work

Another beautiful thing no one tells you about growing up: breaks from school completely change. When I was a kid, breaks meant actually taking a break. Sleeping in all the time, spending every day with friends, movies and shows and ice cream galore. Avoiding your little bit of homework like the plague, going full days without picking up a pen, or even knowing the date and time. You look foward to break as a time to forget responsibility and relax.

Then, somewhere along the line, life starts. And instead of saying, "A week off to do absolutely nothing!" you say, "Oh thank God, I can finally clean!"

Instead of resting and sleeping, and playing, you see break as a time to get everything done that you never have any time to do. My to-do list for this vacation is as follows:

~ clean room/launder every article of clothing I own
~ get my ball dress hemmed
~ buy running/every day shoes
~ finish english paper
~ start european review project
~ take the 4-hour long placement test for Behrend
~ go summer job hunting

Basically you take a break from every-day work to get some more work done. This isn't even really the sad thing; the tragedy is that you actually start to enjoy it. Like today, I'm sitting at my computer at 11:00 in the morning, with the sun coming through my window and coffee less than an arm's-length away. The idea of having hours and hours just to get my paper done is pure bliss. And going back to school next week, even though I'm walking into four weeks of full-scale AP hell, I will have that beautiful, rested feeling that everything else that needed to be done is done.

Growing up is a lot of work. But life gets bigger and wider and more exciting anyways. Working to pay for college as opposed to working for CD and clothes money are very different things. When you say "Next year, can I fly to Boston for a weekend to visit a friend?" your parents say, "Ok, just not the first semster- let everyone settle in." Doing an assignment for journalism will be very different from doing yet another pointless french project. You work more, but the work gets better.