It’s kind of funny how, as young bored humans, we’re never really happy where we are. When it gets cold out, we wish it was warmer (and vice versa). When we buy a new gadget, we complain that we should have waited longer in order to  get the new version. When school’s out, we complain about how bored we are back at home and how much we miss college.

But when it’s all said and done, which do we like better? Our home-away-from home in a 10×10 space or our actual home complete with annoying family members and chores?

ROUND 1: THE GRUB

The first thing I do when I come home is check in with my mom to see what she’s making for dinner. It may sound a bit juvenile, but when you’re at college, you forget how amazing and rare your mom’s pot roast is or your dad’s grilled chicken. Sure, you could hit up the cafeteria any time and get a whole tray of pizza, pasta, chicken nuggets, stir-fry, and ice cream but none of that processed junk is going to have that home-cooked to perfection taste we all know and love. Hell, cafeteria food doesn’t even come close. Not to mention, home-cooked meals are generally healthier for you. Oh, and did I mention that eating at home is free (unless your parents are ridiculously broke and charge you for dinner)? Yeah, I’m going to say that home practically killed this round.

WINNER: HOME

ROUND 2: THE SCENE

Unless you go to some small Christian school in the most remote area of Connecticut, most colleges are really diverse places. A day never goes by when you don’t see someone new walking around campus. That being said, it’s usually the complete opposite when you go home (unless you’re lucky enough to live in some amazing city like New York or LA). And yeah, sometimes getting some much-needed alone time away from society is nice, but it’s bound to get pretty boring after a week or two. College is a breeding ground for new experiences and once-in-a-lifetime events. Home really can’t compare.

WINNER: COLLEGE

ROUND 3: THE CRIB

Dorm rooms have all the essentials (and by essentials, I mean a toilet, clothing, and a jumbo pack of Cup’o'Noodles), but a sleep in your own bedroom back home can never really compare. Then again, it’s nice to be able to sleep somewhere without being woken up by your mom, siblings or even your dog every morning. Not to mention, unless you have an OCD roommate, no one’s ever going to care quite as much as your parents about the cleanliness of your room. So which do I prefer? The 10×10 closet with trash, dirty clothing, and books stacked the ceiling or my old bedroom complete with old posters, childhood memorabilia, and chore duties. Hmm… I think the dorm room makes it by just a hair.

WINNER: COLLEGE

ROUND 4: THE RULES

True freedom is something I feel like I never had until college. Yeah, I had the right to say and do whatever I wanted in high school, but I always had to face the consequences of my actions and was usually punished way too heavily for stupid little things. In college, the tables turn completely. You can literally do WHATEVER you want (except light candles in your room or drink to the point where they have to pump your stomach) as long as you handle it yourself and no one else gets hurt. Seriously, I was in shock when I learned I could stay up all night, go to Dunkin Donuts at 2AM, or skip class whenever I wanted without anybody really caring at all. It seems as though whenever I go home, I forget about all those freedoms and go back to the military-school behavior I had to use back in the day because in the eyes of most parents, children should never be allowed to stay up past 8PM or sleep in until noon.

WINNER: COLLEGE

FINAL ROUND: ULTIMATE CHAMPIONSHIP

Okay, so college won almost every round by a landslide which is understandable, but don’t take it too hard, home! Remember, most of us will only be here for 4 years and then it’ll be back to chores, family drama, and really good food. This era of complete freedom and really fattening food will be over before you know it, so make the most of it while you still can! And come on, would it kill you to call your parents every now and then?

It’s finally here, Thanksgiving.  The only American holiday that goes hand and hand with elastic waistband pants. Just a few months ago your parents dropped you off at school with advice like “study hard” and “don’t drink anything out of a trashcan.” Since then, you’ve basked in the glory of freedom and the scent of stale beer and your first walk of shame.

However, you’re still excited to travel home and relax.  Quite frankly, studying and your hoppin’ college social life has wrung you out like a dishcloth and you’re ready for some R&R, hot gravy, and a serious post-feast nap.  It turns out though, freedom has sent everything your mother taught you completely backwards, and you’ve endured some weird habits in college.  Let’s just keep one thing straight, like your orange zubaz don’t quite ‘go’ with your blazer, some college behavior doesn’t transfer well into cute, family time.

Let us examine the do’s and don’ts of being home for a lengthy weekend:

Do: Request all of your favorite foods from Mom (and take home all the leftovers).
Don’t: Request a run to liquor store where she buys enough booze to stock your under-aged arse throughChristmas.

Do: Take the hottest and steamiest shower known to mankind, use tons of your mom’s expensive shampoo, and five towels to dry (one for your legs, one for your hair, one for your upper body, one for your face…you get the point).
Don’t: Bring home the hottest, steamiest boy from your high school for a little post-bar fun.

Do: Sit down and watch as many movies as you can, while you cuddle with your cat, side-read a book, and drink hot chocolate.
Don’t: Sit down and watch as many dirty/funny YouTube videos at the kitchen table next to your Grandmother (who’s visiting for the weekend) while you side-read ‘Love, Lust, and Faking it’ by Jenny McCarthy.

Do: Sit down with your Mama, paint your toenails together, and get some applicable, wise life advice.
Don’t: Sit down with Mama, and tell her the graphic story about how you stubbed your toe when you were drunk and crawling into your newest fling’s dorm room.  Do us all a favor, cover the bruise with purple O.P.I. and call it a day.

Do: Call your BFF from college and tell her the story about reuniting with your friends and how much your ex gained all that “beer weight.” Take that.
Don’t: Chitty chat with the bestie all weekend.  You have a lot of leftovers to enjoy and conversing with the fam to do!

Do: Have some high school girlfriends over, order pizza, shoot the shiz, and play a board game or something.  It’s been, like, three months since you’ve got up with these losers so make that reunion happen!
Don’t: Have your entire high school class over for a kegger while your parents are out for the night and welcome them home with stains on their carpet, and a passed out ex-Wildcats captain on their kitchen floor.

Do: Go shopping! We all know about Black Friday.  Even better, go online shopping.  That why, you don’t have to put down the stuffing to fill up your shopping cart.
Don’t: Go shopping and make your poor mother buy you a costume from Ragstock for the upcoming ‘no pants’ theme party back in college town.

Do: Have your Mom wash your North Face and get out the Ugg boots spray.  They are starting to look weathered, and you have to look supa’ fly walking to class next week!
Don’t: Have your Mom wash that mysterious stain off of your homecoming jersey…please, Tide Sticks are selling like hot cakes for a reason.

Do: Wake up at noon, and fall back asleep for three hours just because you can.
Don’t: Wake up next to the face of your life’s regret, the guy who broke up with you your senior year so he could “have fun in college.”

Got any other tips for a successful/not awkward/G-rated Thanksgiving break at home? Leave ‘em below!

Here are 5 Things to Know About Being Home for Thanksgiving:

“Honey, why are you sitting in your room with a bottle of Cherry Burnett’s and that T-Pain song on repeat?”

Okay, so Mom probably doesn’t know who T-Pain is.  And she probably also doesn’t know what pre-gaming looks like.  Meeting up with high school friends for a little reunion?  Avoid the sticky questions by taking your pre-game out of the parentals’ line of vision.

“Umm…will your friend be spending the night?”

Your childhood bedroom is not built from the same soundproof cinderblock walls as your dorm.  It’s also located in your parents’ house.  But you just found out that the geeky guy from senior statistics turned into a total babe during college and he totally wants to hook up with y-o-u!  Play on, player…but not at home.

“Now, your Uncle Melvin and I were wondering what you’re going to do with a degree in…philosophy?”

As you join hands and give thanks for the bountiful feast sitting on your Thanksgiving table, try to have a little patience with your relatives.  Their insistence that liberal arts majors can’t make a steady living are really just concerns for your well-being.  When you’re clutching the big turkey-cutting knife, repeat that to yourself.

“I’ll buy you a box of Sour Patch Kids if you come to the movies with me.”

Guess what?  Little siblings can be cool, especially if you’re stuck at home for a long weekend without any friends nearby.  Round up the troops and take them to see a movie or to grab a soda (with or without vodka, depending on their age).

“Didn’t we call you mouth-breather in high school?”

If you’re without siblings (or if they’re too cool for you), don’t ignore the people you might not have hung out with in high school.  “Wanna grab a drink?” is a universally understood phrase, especially during the stressful holiday season.

Why are you excited to go home for Thanksgiving? Tell us below and be automatically entered to win a $50 giftcard to BustedTees (only the FUNNIEST shirts ever made). That $50 is good for TWO t-shirts or one awesome MonsterHoodie. We’ll randomly draw a winner on Wednesday, November 24th and announce it on Facebook and Twitter.

Plus, just because they’re awesome, BustedTees is giving everyone 10% off their order with discount code ‘CollegeCandy’ at check-out! Yes! Just in time for all that holiday shopping!

…In case you’re wondering, we’d like this one, please.
CONTEST CLOSED!
Congrats to Kia for bringing home the bacon! Can’t wait to see what she buys!

But which home is home?

We’ve been following Charlsie, a 2010 grad, on her journey through the post-grad life, from the big move to the big job hunt to the major “Is this real life?!” moments. And now, with fall in full swing, she’s got something else weighing on her mind.

Whether we want to believe it or not, the holidays are approaching. I know, it feels like summer just started – even though it really just ended – but the reality is that temperatures are dropping, leaves are starting to change, and before we know it, it’ll be time for turkey, presents, and busy shopping malls. Like many people, I’m left with the question of where to spend the holidays at.

In college, it was so black and white. For the holidays, I made the seven hour drive home to my mom’s for Thanksgiving break and winter break. My dad isn’t a big fan of celebrating the holidays, so whether he spent the season with my sister and me or not – it didn’t matter to him either way. So, when the holidays started to come up in discussion with my family, I immediately figured I’d go home to Atlanta.

But I can’t help but feel like I’m leaving someone else behind, no matter what kind of holiday location choice I make. And since plane tickets nearly cost an arm and a legs these days, it makes things even more complicated. Really, it seems impossible to please everyone.

For example, my boyfriend and his family have invited me to go skiing with them in Colorado for the holiday (I have never gone skiing before, this could be disastrous). As much as I want to, I don’t have the money for a plane ticket, ski rentals, and all other miscellaneous costs. It broke my heart having to say no, but at the same time, it would have broken my heart to not spend the holidays with my family. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

It feels like no matter what I pick though, I’m screwing someone over. If I’m not with my boyfriend (who I rarely get to see – long distance relationship, thank you for that), I worry about when we’ll see each other next. When I’m with my mom and sister, I worry about not being with my dad. When I’m out here in California, I worry about Keeping Up With the Kardashians (and discussing every detail with my sister).

Right now, I know I’m going to see my mom for Christmas, but I have no clue as to what I’m doing for Thanksgiving. Should I stay here with my dad? Should I head to my grandparents’ place for a few days? Should I meet my boyfriend in St. Louis? Should I just book myself a plane ticket and head to Cancun with a bottle of tequila and forget it all?

But seriously, I feel like this is on the beginning of my “Where do I go for the holidays?” future. You see it all the time in movies and on TV, couples trying to decide where to spend the holidays. People being split up amongst their divorced, dysfunctional parents. Families debating on whether to go to grandma in Tennessee’s house or grandma in Iowa’s house. Yikes. Decisions, decisions – just another thing to look forward to as I get older.

One thing is certain, though. Just because I’m a post-grad doesn’t mean I can avoid the hustle and bustle and shopping of the holiday season. No one can. Not even in October.

I was one of those kids that never really got homesick when I was in college. While my friends would have occasional breakdowns and cry about not being with their families or their hometown friends, I never spent too much time dwelling on what I could have been missing at home – I was too busy doing everything else. But now, as a fully functioning member of real life, I think I’m suffering from my first adult case of homesickness.

Maybe it’s the advent of fall or just the general time of year – back to school – but everything just feels off. While everyone on the East coast is talking about the leaves starting to change, I’m anxiously awaiting for some kind of sign that a seasonal change is about to take place. While I’m looking to head back to school next year, Facebook is blowing up with status updates about first day of classes, professor quotes, and new discoveries out in the real world.

And as the world turns, well – I just feel like something is missing.

Despite running around like a chicken with its head cut off interning in Los Angeles and studying wayyyy more than I ever did in college for one little test known as the LSAT, I feel like what little downtime I have is making me feel like I’m missing something out there – but I can’t necessarily put my finger on it.

Yes, college is over. No more Solo cup littered lawns, boys in bowties for no reason, the dining hall’s Swedish meatballs, the anxious anticipation for traditions, and the engaging class discussions. It’s over, and I don’t really wish I could do it over again. So, what is this feeling? Maybe my body feels like I should be back in some hardwood floored dorm room watching the leaves fall onto the quad, and it hasn’t synched with my mind that certainly knows I don’t really want to be there.

Maybe I’m just waiting for something to happen. This whole LSAT process involves a lot of practice – a lot of constant build up. Since things are up in the air until my mailbox has admissions letters, maybe this feeling will stick around – and I should just accept it.  But boy, it’s making me homesick, and living out in California is one of the most interesting experiences. Some days, I feel like the luckiest person alive – living mere minutes from the beach. And then other days, I feel like I’m being swallowed by this soulless place.

Knowing this humors me though. The minute I go back home, whether it’s to live or to visit, I know I will be ready to leave again. To find something new.  Maybe everything I wanted was right in front of me throughout the last four years, and now everything I want is scattered across the United States – including myself.

All in all, this dilemma of homesickness and the feelings of something missing makes me think everything I’ve ever read about being a twenty-something is right: you really are always on the search for something, and there’s no one telling you how or when or where you’ll find it.

So maybe that’s what I’m homesick for – the certainty and routine that life in college can provide. Well, that and 3-day weekends. Those were nice.

Do: bring home all that laundry for mom to do

Being back under your parents’ roof for Thanksgiving comes with a cornucopia of blessings, such as mom doing your laundry, shopping sprees and overeating until you actually consider braving the Black Friday crowds just to purchase a pair of jeans with an elastic waistband. However, being back under mom and dad’s watchful eye can be treacherous, as well.

This isn’t dorm life anymore. You can’t order Dominos at 2 a.m. and feed it to your late-night booty call in bed. That wasn’t OK in high school, and, believe me, it still won’t be appreciated by your parentals now. You may be a big, bad college student, but there are still some house rules that you must abide by.

That being said, here are some guidelines for navigating life at home for the Thanksgiving season:

Do enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with your entire extended family and celebrate with a glass of wine.

Don’t crush cans at the dinner table like you’re at a frat party. Because when asked what you’re thankful for this Thanksgiving, you’re great-aunt Susie won’t be laughing when you say “the morning after pill.”

Do have a few friends over for a Thanksgiving Eve pregame. There is nothing that my mom loves more than having my friends over to recap our lives over wine and snacks before she drives us to our night’s destination.

Don’t invite your entire Facebook friends list and set up a beer pong tournament on the kitchen table. Getting the family dog trashed may seem like a cool idea now, but the moment your parent’s feel it’s safe to come out of hiding in their bedroom, you’ll be getting an earful.

Do go out with friends and relive your high school glory days at a good ol’ fashioned house party.

Don’t attempt to use your fake I.D. at the local bar. There’s simply no good explanation a group of kids from various different states spanning the continental U.S. have gathered together to spend Thanksgiving in a small town in Jersey. It’s just not believable.

Do continue the search for a mate. High school boys do a lot of growing up in college; you never know what old crush or summer fling will need rekindling.

Don’t get drunk and sneak them into the basement. Experience has taught me that being awoken to breakfast-in-bed by mommy can turn quite ugly when a naked boy joins the party.

Do use protection.

Don’t ask your dad for it. He may agree, but it will most likely be a shotgun he brings out, not a condom.

You’ve been warned.

Yes, there are many up-sides to this little trip: we get a break from all the homework, we get to eat something other then cafeteria mystery meat for a change, and we get to curl up with Scruffy on the couch for a couple of days.

But with the comfort of being home comes a few downers as well. And I’m not talking about being woken up at 9am on a Saturday or having to empty the dishwasher. It’s those little comments from mom and dad that really get under your skin. And no matter how hard you try to be nice, you just can’t help but snap, say something mean and beeline to the car/airport (clean clothes and leftovers in hand, obvi) as soon as humanly possible.

Here are a few of the worst offenders:

“Honey, your pants look a little tight”
Yes mom, I realize that drinking 5 days out of the week and eating delivery pizza has done a number on my waistline. Am I happy about it? No. Do I know it is there? Yes. Is it helping that you pinch the muffin top and poke the underarm flab? Absolutely not!

“Have you found a nice boy yet?”
If by “nice” you mean “a tall pre-med student who considers hanging out in the library fun,” then no, dad, I have not found your ideal son-in-law quite yet. But I have hooked up with a couple of the guys on the football team who can barely form coherent sentences but have 8-pack stomachs you can bounce a quarter off of, if that counts for anything.

“Are you getting straight A’s?”
Don’t you think if I was acing every test I probably would’ve mentioned it to you in our weekly phone calls? It’s the fact that I am failing Bio miserably and barely ever making it to the 9 a.m. calculus lectures that has kept this topic out of our discussions. Maybe next semester. Keep praying, I know I am.

“We’re not just your ATM, you know.”
Ok, so they’re right about that, but between classes and everything else I’m doing on campus (napping?), I just don’t have the time to call and chat every day. Hell, they should be happy they hear from me at all.

“We saw your pictures on Facebook, you look like you are having…a lot of fun”
Get off Facebook! This is not a tool to stalk your children and befriend your old high school classmates and catch up. This is my website where I stalk my ex boyfriends and post sloppy pictures of myself, neither of which I would like you to monitor.

“Why can’t I see your Facebook pictures anymore?”
I have no idea, mom; Facebook must be crashing. It’s been having a lot of issues you know, giving people viruses and stuff. You should really terminate your account.

“We are still trying to plan that visit”
Oh goody. I can cancel all the party invitations for a 4-day weekend filled with quiet dinners, giving campus tours, and being yelled at for living in a pigsty. Wonderful. I’ll just pray you don’t find the handle of rum under my bed, or the textbooks still in their wrapping in the desk drawer.

What else do your parents pester you with over break that drives you crazy?

I remember crying as I packed for college a gazillion years ago and freaking out that I would never really be coming home again in the same way. But, the second I got home for Thanksgiving break, I realized exactly how wrong I was about that. My house was just as I left it (minus a few things my sister borrowed, stretched out, and left in the trunk of the car) and despite being insanely more educated, my family didn’t treat me any differently. I still fought with my sister over the remote (The Nanny reruns, really?), I still was expected to help with the dishes (ugh), and I still had to tell my mom in excruciating detail where I was going when I left the house.

However this past June when I left to go to New York I went through the exact same emotions, overly dramatic arm flailing and unattractive tears galore as I packed up. And once again, I proved myself wrong. I went home this past week to take a break from adult responsibilities, such as job hunting and obsessively updating my Linkedin and I discovered that still nothing changed.

It seems that no matter how old I get, I will always revert back to my 18-year-old self as soon as I step foot in the front door. And unfortunately for my siblings, I treat them as if they haven’t aged since my senior year in high school. It wasn’t until I was looking at pictures that I realized my prepubescent brother who I still refer to as Baby Brother was actually 17 and four feet taller than me. When did that happen and how do I somewhat gently ask him to shave his three lone facial hairs that he calls a beard?

The biggest difference between coming home in college and coming home as a post-grad is that now I crave that attention from my mom. Back in the old days I had high school friends to visit and places where I felt like I just had to show my face. I spent 90% of my break telling my mom that I’m in college now so it’s actually none of her business when I come home or if she wakes up to me sleeping under the dining room table with pine cones in my hair.

But now that my home friend count has dwindled down to fractional numbers, I surprisingly (perhaps sadly) enjoy spending time with her. She’s the only person that is genetically required to care about all the stories I tell. (Sidenote: while I appreciate her listening, there’s nothing more frustrating in the entire world than her mixing up names. It’s like, “try to follow me here on this story, Mom. Sam is NOT the same person as Sammy.”) And opposed to the college years (I divide my life the same way Saved by the Bell divided shows), I now look forward to being babied and coddled. I expect chocolate chip pancakes when I wake up and, yes, I would like whipped cream on top of that hot chocolate. Yes I want you to take me shopping and yes I expect you to cancel your dinner party with friends that you’ve had planned for months just so you can make my favorite dessert and serve it hot.

This past trip home has taught me the older I get, the poorer I get, the better going home gets. It’s all rather backwards.

No one should be expected to sit in the library or stare at their dorm room walls every day of the week with their nose in a book. Everyone needs something that helps them unwind, especially on the weekends.

Sometimes finding something to do – especially on a campus where parties are a rare occasion -  is hard. I knew when I signed my life away as a Hollins woman, I was going to be living in Roanoke, Virginia,and that I wouldn’t have a big city as my playground on the weekend. I knew I wasn’t attending a huge state school where fraternity parties are the social factor and that club activities would be endless. As a prospective, I remember asking about the student life on the weekends only to hear the same fib that my fellow peers heard themselves as prospective students: “Don’t worry about it, you will always find something going on.”

Oh, but that is very far from the truth. Options on campus are very bleak. From the first weekend as a first year, I realized as no one was around on the weekends I would have to be entirely responsible for finding something to do Friday and Saturday nights. While not feeling bogged down by having too many social activities planned, I like that Hollins has a sleepy atmosphere (especially for those weekends I need to do a lot of work), but for the most part – I don’t understand why we can’t have some sort of decent entertainment when the weekend rolls around.

The social scene at Hollins on any given weekend can be summed up in three ways:

1) You leave on the weekends

2) You rely on an apartment party or a party hosted by NEFA (a specialty housing dorm)

3) You hope the Student Life/Activity Board has something planned

A huge chunk of the student body leaves on the weekend. Girls carpool for the entire weekend up to Hampden-Sydney, an all male college two hours away and sleep on random futons since making the drive back in one night is out of the question. If Hampden-Sydney isn’t someone’s bag, other colleges like Washington and Lee, Virginia Tech, and Roanoke College can be visited. However, if you don’t know someone who goes to those schools, good luck finding a party or meeting people. What does the rest of the student body do when they leave? They go home! Students who are from Virginia or even close cities in North Carolina find themselves frequently going home because of the lack of campus activities. The only time students make plans to stay is if a formal is happening, which only happens twice a year.

Occasionally an apartment party or a themed party through NEFA will happen, but the frequency of this is rare. Also, these parties aren’t for everyone. Many girls don’t feel comfortable going over to the campus apartments because they don’t fit the cliques that live in many of the apartments. NEFA, a housing dorm for the campus’ artsy folks, throws unique, unforgettable parties, but most of them are not for the faint of heart. What if you just want a small get together? What about a dorm room?

Parties in other dorms do not happen, whatsoever, which can be very frustrating. Say it’s 11pm on Friday and you want to “Just Dance” along with Lady Gaga and your two best friends? Good luck getting through the song before someone calls Campus Safety to complain and a knock from an officer interrupts you. Every hour in all the dorms seems to be quiet hour. Whenever students speak up about the lack of social atmospheres, the Activity Board usually says “We have monthly mixers with a DJ and we invite other schools” to combat the complaints, but it does not suffice when no one actually shows up to the poorly planned and advertised school sponsored parties.

For a small university, Hollins is very diverse in its beliefs and types of students. Regardless of the variety amongst us, I have heard over and over again that not enough is done on the weekends in order to give students something to do. Yes, Hollins shows a movie every weekend in the auditorium and they have a shuttle take students to the mall, movies, and Wal-Mart, but that is not enough. When over half of the campus departs on the weekend to other colleges or home, something more needs to be done. How can a campus have a close-knit community when everyone leaves by 2pm on Friday and returns by 6pm on Sunday?

I am not asking for endless activities on the weekend. I think that students should be responsible for coming up with something to do, but I do believe that the university should endorse a more sociable atmosphere. Whether that means allowing students to have dance parties at reasonable hours without getting campus officers sent up or providing well planned mixers with other colleges, something needs to happen in order to help the social scene from sinking even more than it continues to do so!

In asking for other opinions from students on campus, Hollins sophomore Jennifer Old sums up how actions should be taken on campus to improve the overall weekend situation: “I think people are hesitant about the parties and other social events held on campus. Parties are broken up much more quickly at Hollins and the threat of the Roanoke Police has become very real. As for the social scene outside of the party sphere, I think there should be a community forum every semester. HAB (The Activity Board) should hear the collective desires of the campus and cater to the diverse interests of Hollins women.”

Obviously a social environment is very important to college life. Now tell me, how do you spend your weekends? Do you think your college provides enough entertainment and amusement for students? What do you want more of in your school’s social scene? Dish – I want to hear what I’m missing!

For me, that journey home was pretty long: 1330.45 miles, if we’re being exact. And after two weeks at home, and that initial joyful reunion with my friends from high school, I am suffering from a major case of reverse homesickness.

During my first semester of school, all I wanted to do was go back to Florida, transfer to a school where academics are often neglected for tanning and water sports, despite the fact that I had come to Boston to get away from such a scenario. Nonetheless, I was ready to throw in the towel and head back home.

Second semester, however, I really began to find my footing at school, and I had a wonderful time. I did well in all my classes, fell into a groove that enabled me to balance my academic goals with some semblance of a social life, and participated in our school’s spring musical. My last night in Boston was the night of our cast party, which was not short on the debauchery or tearful goodbyes.

Suffice it to say, when I arrived home, I was feeling a little morose. I wasn’t going to see anyone from Boston until September! And now, as a couple weeks have passed and it’s getting stiflingly hot here, I miss Boston and my school friends like nobody’s business. I’ve even come to miss the simplicity of my tiny freshman double, the greasy food at our dining hall, even the drunken frat boys screaming outside my window at 3 in the morning on a Thursday night…I could go on, but I’ll spare you.

So, partly for my sanity, and partly for yours, I’m come up with a few ways to avoid, or at least diminish, that reverse homesickness.

1. Get a job/volunteer: Now, I know the majority of you will do this anyway, but seriously, it has basically saved me these past couple days. A job, no matter how miserable it is, will keep you from sitting at home all day, looking longingly at pictures of your college exploits on Facebook for hours straight. And, if it is miserable, it will give you something to focus on besides your missing friends and school life.

2. Reconnect with old friends from high school: You know you haven’t kept in touch with people this year. Not everyone, at least. Your best friends got some calls and a lot of emails and such, but some of your other friends probably got completely neglected. Now is the time to call them up and plan something to catch up. And if you’re both suffering from reverse homesickness, you can commiserate together.

3. Keep in touch…but not too much: Facebook is a great invention. You and your school friends can check in periodically, just to keep that connection established and to keep up with each other’s lives. Don’t, however, neglect everything to talk for hours on the phone to various friends from school. You both have lives to live, and this dependency is NOT healthy. I’m speaking from experience here people, just trust me.

4. Just have a good summer! It’s really as simple as that. If you’re dynamic, and make your summer amazing, it will be easier to not focus so much on how you miss everything about your school. Go