Alternatively titled: I had overnight oats for breakfast for a week.
I spent Thanksgiving break on campus—so here are some of the not very exciting “highlights.”
Making decisions
To do work, or not to do work, that is the question.
When faced with difficult decisions such as these (or other life-changing questions!) I was given the perfect tool to assist me in such predicaments.
Everyone say thank you to TikTok.
(how it works is that you ask a yes/no question before throwing a pen into the bottle/cup and if it makes it in that means yes)
By the way, for the ones curious, the answer is always to not do work. You’re welcome for the resource/fortune telling/horoscope/obscure reading from whatever gods. My screen time may or may not have doubled over break 😀
Overnight oats
My abundance of oatmeal from the Sunday night Munchie Mart sprees was finally seeing some progress this week. The thought of having oatmeal every breakfast made me feel like I was speeding up my inevitable doom towards becoming a boring old man. Obviously, that was not what we wanted. 
Instead, I had overnight oats (made simply with two things of oatmeal, (almond) milk, packets of sugar and honey finessed from our favorite dining halls). Surprisingly, they were filling and I have yet to get bored of them. Additionally, the need to prepare them the night before made me feel more obligated to make sure I had breakfast consistently—couldn’t let me hard work go to waste after all. Even if it seemed repetitive, I tried to spice it up as much as I could: chocolate milk, to-go peanut butter packs (all from our local Munchie Mart!) that made the overnight oats different every morning.
Even after break, making overnight oats might be something I’ll continue to do. Low effort, tastes good, and versatile—what more could you ask for?
Doing laundry
To the endless people fighting over to do laundry on the Friday before break, I hope you did find yourself a washer to do your laundry before you left for Thanksgiving.
I however, enjoyed my very empty laundry room all to myself over break.
The joys of being able to use four washers (out of five!) at once while not having to feel guilty about being inconsiderate at all? Wow, that’s tough to beat.
Even better, I fell asleep and left my laundry in the washers for maybe a little while after they finished and there were no messages in the house GroupMe telling me to get my laundry. Truly, what a dream to live.
When will I experience such bliss again? Only time will tell.
Doing literally anything else
One of the few things I wanted to do over break: get a haircut.
Haircut? Not got.
Final thoughts
Was this the mental health break I needed? Definitely. Now we gear up for one last stretch—we are somehow very close to finals which is ᵘⁿˢᵉᵗᵗˡᶦⁿᵍ.
It was surprisingly not lonely and also really nice to be a little less considerate. There’s no one to look mildly presentable to, it was fine to have the room messier without a roommate, lectures to feel obligated to attend. Honestly, the lack of people being energetic and lively did make this just feel like a break. As people return to campus, it already feels like this happy land of peace and quiet has slipped between my fingers and away.
Simply, maybe I am really just an introvert—and this was just my dream.