three down, five to go.

I'm home for winter break. 
The freedom of emerging from finals and having no real obligations is a bit unsettling. Waking up this morning I felt something akin to a baby giraffe trying to stand for the first time, all awkward and tripping over its new found legs and wide open world around it. 
Handling this awkward adjustment to freedom meant that I spent the entire morning in my pajamas drinking a lot of bizarre homemade coffee creations (chocolate chips and hazelnut creamer . . . the jury is still out on that one), making pepper jack macaroni and cheese, and watching endless episodes of Criminal Minds. There was an uncomfortable moment when reality tried to squeeze it's way back into the picture in the form of my winter class syllabus, but I recovered gracefully by choosing to put off really reading over the details until this weekend. For now, I am choosing to sit back, relax, and enjoy the freedom to read whatever I want, cuddle with my cats, and not feel guilty for spending excessive amounts of time on Facebook. 

Expectation: Now that the obligation to wake up is gone, I'll choose to get up before 11am. I'll get back into a routine that involves daily pilates and actually eating breakfast. I'll set aside time to do the work for my winter class and bring my GPA up. I'll finally start pulling out those recipes I've so happily bookmarked and learn to actually cook them. I'll clean out my closet and finish reading the five different books I've started throughout the semester. 
But if we're honest, we all know none of this greatly responsible plan will actually occur.  
Reality: Over the next three weeks, I'm going to wreck my sleep schedule, my pilates DVD is going to continue collecting dust, and I'm going to be even more emotionally invested in the lives of fictional FBI profilers.  


At least I've had time to accept this and have had time to cope with it. I have all of next semester to develop responsible habits and all that jazz (but I say this every semester, so we'll see. . .) 

What kind of expectation/reality situation are you looking at this Christmas season?