Holiday homework helpful

By Staff

So, the holidays have come again, and once more it is time for a break in the school year. Almost six weeks of leisure and holiday glee. Once in the days gone by of old America, this was a time when Mom was at home the whole time and families were a whole different matter. When all the stores were closed on Christmas. A time when college students were all 18 to 22 years of age and school was cheap enough that most parents could afford to send their kids to school. In this time grew the idea of that Christmas break, or winter break as it is more properly called, is party time.

Party on, dude. There are a great number of events that require a party such as Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years Eve, oh, and let us not forget Kwanza and the Winter Solstice and Boxing Day and Hannukah. If you are like any of the animals penned in the Griffon News room, you might consider it time to party on any day that ends in a “Y”. Partying raises spirits and helps us remember what all the toil and trouble is worth. It is a holiday break after all: so go nuts.

One thing to remember is that in time you have to come back to school. So before you create an obstacle course for your brain cells that involves beer bongs and beer pong and King Kong playing with his ding dong, maybe you should create a regiment of daily mental exercises to keep you limber for your academic return.

There are a number of things you can do to keep your brains in tip-top fighting shape. You could read a novel, a giant, fat 500 pager. It will help keep you mentally sharp as you process the pages and absorb the words into your brain. It would be good practice for when it is back to the texts that perplex us all semester. In fact it would be brilliant of you to know what books you are going to need and get them now. Pre-read them before the class starts, and you are sure to find your place when it comes time for a lecture or class discussion.

You could balance your books. End of the year records organizing and settling of ledgers is just the thing to keep the numbers tumbling in your head. Build a budget for the coming year and figure out how far you can really make your money fly. You could organize a day planner for the coming year. Analyze your life and make minutes for every minutiae and notes for any notable thing you have to face in the upcoming year.

You could write a research paper about something you are really interested in and then spend the semester looking like the boss of any conversation about your chosen topic which can only help you at parties.

Whatever you do, just keep doing something with your mind. It does not need to go into cold storage just because school is out. It is up to you whether your return from the holidays is as an academic athlete or just another episode of “Return of the Living Brain Dead.”