Just as soon as you thought the stress was going to totally consume you, there is a light at the end of the tunnel: Thanksgiving break.

It seems, at least to me, that everything, in every class, is due this week. There will be no sliding into Thanksgiving break. No sleeping in, no going to bed early. I have officially entered a personal hell.

A hell that has completely ruined this last week of classes.

I may be alone here but I don’t think so. I think there is some kind of secret long standing rule that professors must have a project or a test due this week.

Every other week is routine. You go to class, study for one test or write a paper. Then it’s Thursday and everything is done and you head to the bar.

It’s not the same the week before break.

As if we all aren’t burned out enough as it is from the rest of the semester, we are forced to torture our brains to try and get everything done before the clock strikes midnight and we are turned back into the rats we are, handed a failing grade, kicked out of school, and banished from the University and forced to live with the people of Colfax. (I’m just kidding. Those people were very nice.)

The sick thing is that there is no break. Once I hand in all my papers and take my tests I have to go home.

Home, where I’m forced to live with my parents for a week. Home, where I have to listen to my relatives, who come over for the turkey, begin asking the questions: “How’s school going?”

“When are you going to graduate?”

“What are you going to do after you graduate?”

“Don’t you have a girlfriend yet?”

I just sit there and get pounded by the Gestapo until I come up with answers they want to hear.

The hours drag like days, and the days like weeks. By the end, I’m begging to go back to school and take finals.

I’m sure we all sit there during the Thanksgiving gluttony festival and listen to our parents try and bring us up to speed on all the local gossip that has happened since 1985.

Most of it you already heard last Thanksgiving, but there it is being thrown at you again.

So, what is your only defense? Eating. You just cram turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, bread, everything, into your mouth so that you are unable to answer any of the asinine questions that are directed at you.

You just nod hoping that they will realize that if they make you talk, you will probably choke on your food and die.

Now you move on to the second part of the defense plan: start telling them how school has been going this semester, really. Forget classes, exams and professors.

Tell them about the night that you and your friend decided to see who could drink the most, and how you almost won but you vomited all over your friends textbooks so you were disqualified.

Tell them how you couldn’t stand up at the football game and the people standing in front of you almost passed out because of the whiskey on your breath.

Tell them about the girl/guy you went home with from the bar and what happened with that.

Tell them how you have class at 8 a.m. and you looked outside the window and it was snowing so you decided to sleep all day.

Tell them about the time you walked into that class that you hadn’t been to for a while and there was a test.

Basically, reassure them that your time at college is being well spent. Tell them everything and then watch there faces light up with admiration.

Have a good break everyone, and I will see you people in a few weeks. I’m going back to Ohio.

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J.R. Grant is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.