Candid at Cornell

The same thing happens at the beginning of every semester.

After a few months of academic time off (less during winter break), I always feel relatively energized, and ready to return to school/the demands of college life. What’s funny is, I always tell myself the same thing right before courses start every semester: This is the semester when I make the change. This is the semester when I’ll…

• Go to Noyes gym daily
• Keep a neat agenda on iCal, and schedule meeting times and events months in advance to foresee any conflicts
• Finish all my work in the library (though, admittedly, some of my best 10+ page thesis papers have been written laying horizontally in bed)
• Get really involved in the 20+ organizations that I signed up for at Clubfest–because how can you turn down free food if all you need to do is sign away your email?
• Go to bed at a decent hour every night in my immaculately clean West Campus dorm, and wake up feeling energized every day
• Schedule my eating better, and not wonder one month into the school year where the hell my $300 allotment of Big Red Bucks went for the semester (answer: Terrace salads and Mac’s pasta, both of which are in the hotel school and conveniently aren’t on my unlimited meal plan)

But… every semester, about 2 weeks in, it always happens: I get distracted. The pressures of academia and various commitments add up, leaving me fatigued and somewhat unwilling to break out of my normal routine. Studying and enjoying my precious free time gets in the way of working out regularly and getting to sleep early. Plus, I love those damn hotel school salads too much to switch to Okenshields for lunch…I just can’t do it. (And now that I’m in the AEM program, I’ll have classes near Manndibles, which doesn’t take BRB’s either.)

It’s okay, though. Because next, next semester is when I’ll really do all those things.