Thanksgiving was pretty awesome, wasn’t it? Lots of food, lots of family and lots of time to do nothing but watch reality TV show marathons and eat homemade desserts. Then you come back to school and it takes only a moment to realize that the comforts of Thanksgiving break are long gone.

Finals are coming.

So now instead of laying low and relishing in the sweetness of chocolate-y desserts, you are spending every waking moment in the library surrounded by books, highlighters, a laptop and hundreds of other stressed out students. You are starving, but the damn library won’t let you bring in snacks and you are far too busy to leave. You have to pee, but there is just no time for it! That paper isn’t going to write itself!

Stop. Breathe. Perhaps a little Study Porn will make you feel better. Here are some of the things getting us through this stressful time. Mmmmm, Coach Bags….

[Main photo courtesy of Flickr.]

Three episodes into the season, and we’re just now getting into Back-to-School season. Hence, the lavish drama-inducing party is replaced by upscale bars that serve teenagers, and the Colorful-Martini-on-White-Dress shtick from the Vitamin Water party is replaced by some sort of acid formula that burns the victims’ hair right off her scalp. Ouch.

Am I getting ahead of myself? Here’s what you need to know: Serena and Dan are each having qualms about seeing each other back at school, while Blair and her drones are preparing for their yearly initiation of potential newbies (which Jenny failed at last year). This creates the perfect set-up for new character Amanda’s entrance. Just as Blair explains to Serena that whomever dates first wins, bam! Dan bumps into Amanda, which can only have a tragic outcome.

Obviously, Blair has to intervene, which causes Serena to suggest a threeway. No, not a menage a trois, but a date between herself, Dan, and…Amanda. As if Dan’s fifth grade half-wave in the quad wasn’t awkward enough. The three-way date quickly turns into a foursome when Serena enlists a meathead to try to make Dan jealous…to no avail. And what do hot socialite girls do when they are horribly rejected? They hide their hurt feelings with vengeance.

But let’s jump to the first shocker of the night: Catherine and Marcus. Like, you know. Catherine and Marcus. Poor Vanessa thinks she’s got the ball in her court when she snaps them pre-nooky with her iPhone. But she’s no Waldorf, and that’s going to come back to haunt her. And Nate.

As Serena tries to hide her broken heart from lonely boy, the “old” Serena begins to make a comeback. Most notably in the line, “If this were a competition, I wouldn’t need Blair and her posse to win.” Ouch, Dan, them’s fighting words.

Of course, Serena really doesn’t need B and Company to win… because Chuck Bass is still lurking in the background. Which brings me to shocker number 2: Amanda is one of Chuck’s many, many pawns in his game of Upper East Side Chess. So Amanda’s a phony, Serena’s the new queen bee, Blair’s sent both Marcus and Cougar Catherine packing, and amidst everyone’s personal drama, nobody’s realized that Chuck holds the ball in his court.

Welcome back, bitchy Serena. Just when we thought your story line was getting dull.

Just one more thing: What is up with the geeky Asian Ugly Betty chick, and why does is she part of Blair’s posse?

Bow down or bow out, kids. Things are about to get ugly.

Well, it’s post-Entourage Monday, and I definitely saw this one coming. No pun intended.

Vince’s storyline focuses on his already rocky relationship with his new agent, Amanda. What a beast. But it’s not that they don’t like each other. It’s that they reeeealllly do like each other. So much so that Amanda gives Vince quite the proposition.

After Vince tells Amanda she is “cute” in front of E, (which pisses him off and probably makes him jealous) she asks Vince if he thinks she is “hot” and if he wants to secretly sleep with her, get it out of the way so the sexual tension can be relieved, and then get on with their professional relationship.

And – here’s the shocker -Vince agrees! Can you believe it? He agrees to have pure, unadulterated Sexy Time! And the show ends as Vince slyly slips away from the boys to meet up with his lucky lady.

There will probably be repercussions, but if I was Amanda, I’d do the same thing.

While all of the obnoxious flirting is going on, Ari is stuck in marriage counseling, realizes that ever since he’s lost Vince, he’s been too much of a softy, and ends up firing a down-on-his-luck employee in true Ari A**hole form. He puts on quite the show for everyone in his office and redeems himself as the kinda guy he apparently is in real life.

That’s basically it for this week. Don’t miss next week’s episode, if for nothing else than at least for Pauly Shore. No, really.