MyLeslieNotebook

Welcome home! Isn't Christmas break the best? You're so excited to be with your family, get caught up on sleep, see your friends, and just chill for that amazing 5-week break that only colleges give. :) But things are weird. There's tension. It's like you've come home to a different house.  How do I know? Because it's what happened to me. It's what happens to every college freshman who comes home for the first Christmas. And here's the deal: you've been away at college for about 4 months. Your family is used to you NOT being there. And by virtue of you being back, that's one extra person to feed, clean up after, include, and help. (Not that your parents mind this! But it's just a different dynamic.) And you are accustomed to pretty much doing as you please; you don't need to let anyone know when you're coming or going or what you're doing. You eat, sleep, shower, shop, watch movies, hang out with friends, and drink coffe...

For you college girls out there, I know what's consuming your life right now: EXAMS.  And so much stuff comes with exams: studying, papers, stress, and an ongoing desire to just GO HOME FOR CHRISTMAS. (More on that in another post!) Yes, exams are meant to be hard. They're meant to see what you really retained over the past 4 months. They're meant to push you, make you dig, and see what actually got buried in your brain. You want to succeed at exams.  They are a way to measure what you remembered. But do you know that your success--or failure--in your exams does not define you? Really. And, come to think of it, neither does your GPA, now or in high school. Neither does your school, your major, or your scholarship level. You're not defined by your friends, your abilities, your family, your social skills, your intelligence, or your past. Really? Really. I promise. So who are you? What defines you? How do you define yourself? Other people define you...