“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”- Mostly a lazy person looking for an excuse to be lazy.
“All play and no work, makes Jack a lazy boy”- A mother trying to motivate or overwork their kid. Lol
First of all, I’m Hamza, not Jack. I love the holidays. It’s my favorite part of the year (the academic year anyways). Not that I get to have crazy fun or anything, but I get to take a break from studying. At least that was what it meant to me for most of my life. I’m looking at it different this year though, because I’ve kinda joined the working class where the holidays doesn’t mean freedom from study time anymore. It means freedom but from work!
I started my National Service a few months ago and I can tell from working two months that by the end of this year when I’ll be done with it, I sure will be looking like black mango. Lol.
I think you get where this is headed now. Or do I still have to tell you I’m the class that doesn’t want the holidays to be over?
Now to get you to understand why I love the holidays, I can either tell you why I don’t like working days, or I can just tell you directly why I love being on holidays. I’ll be doing a bit of both.
I obviously don’t just like the holidays because I don’t want to work. But even if I did, you can trust there must be good reason behind it. The holidays, aside giving me a break from work, affords me a lot of other privileges I can’t afford when I’m working.
More Free Time, Less Stress.
Yeah this is my favorite thing about the holidays and almost everything I get to do during holidays is centered around this. Only this is enough reason to dismiss whatever justification I might want to come up for wanting to go back to work.
In school, even the weekends that are supposed to be a 2-day break from studies is only but a facade. It’s like
Meme
The weekend is supposed to be for rest, but for students, it’s to review the past week and prepare for the following week. It’s to do assignments, lab practical reports, and if you can squeeze in a few hours of gaming, soccer or a movie, then you’re a lucky fella.
Working as a Teaching Assistant affords me even less free time than school did (or so it seems so far).
However, I get as much time as I need to myself to handle my business and relax during the holidays. I get to take really long naps during the day and stay up all night binging shows. Yeah good luck doing that back in school or at work.
Just last semester when I started, I slept as early as 8pm on some days because of how tiresome the workday was. I’m not an early sleeper so getting me to sleep early takes some serious work (or stress lol).
I get more time for my hobbies- Hive, movies, pool time, connecting in person with family and friends, and more. Basically, stuff a working day doesn’t accord me much time for.
Emotional and Mental Stability
Believe me when I tell you that school plays a huge part in the frequency and onset of my on and off seasonal depression. I used to have short episodes of depression and breakdown at least once a week because of the stress of having to deal with so much simultaneously. Especially in final year. Let’s not even talk about that!
I’ve had weeks where I almost lost it due to overwhelming pressure from deadlines of procrastination of several months worth of academic work. Those were tough days lol.
It just dawned on me that it’s actually been a very long time since my last episode. Lol seems like I’ve gotten to the bottom of the trigger to my seasonal depression.
I can understand why some people would want to go back to school or work though
This is especially the case among students. Some friend groups live very far apart at home, and the proximity of the holidays mean temporary byebye. Friends like this can’t wait to get back to school to reconnect with their circle.
My friends and I don’t fall into this category. We either decide to still stay on campus as long as we want after vacation, or even when we do decide to go home, we connect and stay in touch still. We don’t live that far apart as 30 minutes ride is the farthest we are.
Another thing that some students can’t wait to go back to school because of. A lot of University students around here barely take upkeep money when they’re home because they’re seen as old enough to fend for themselves in terms of basic needs (even though they don’t work or have an earning means).
In the typical African home with the current economic crisis, you can be sure you won’t het up keep money at home. It’s a different story for when you’re in school though. In school, you’re treated like the golden child(at least most of the time). You get pocket money and if you’re sharp enough, maybe a couple more extra bucks for miscellaneous stuff.
Me, my Hive payouts have helped my finances, so I don’t pay much attention to whether there’s pocket money or not. That has honestly been the plan. To be able to afford for myself completely and be 100% independent. As a result, I don’t fall into the category that looks forward to school because of getting more pocket money.
Lol this was the biggest reason I looked forward to resumption of school during holidays. Privacy and peace of mind are the two things you can only wish for in an African home. They just also happen to be very important to me an African child (ironically) so much so that I liked staying back on campus even during the holidays.
I spent 90% of the covid lockdown in school because that was a very long time to be at home where they’ll potentially be problems everyday of the week 24/7.
I don’t know how it is how it is,or it if it’s only a thing in my house, but in my house you’re given very special treatment and accorded a lot of respect the first few days you come home from school. Anything a month after that will be problems. So if you know what’s good for you (which I do, thank me very much) you don’t stay around long enough for the family to get used to you and start treating you normal again. This has been my motto since I went to Senior High School. Stay as long as you need and nothing more.
Most people looking forward to the resumption of school are not truly glad about school activities itself, but because of the privileges it restores them. And in my opinion, if they had the same privileges at home during the holidays, I bet they’d stay in the holidays forever!
Me, I come home and go to campus when I want, so given that, I don’t really need the resumption of school to enjoy the privileges resumption of school affords me. The relevance of the holidays far outweigh whatever privileges being in school grants me for two simple reasons in summary- More time, less stress!
All pictures in this post are mine and meme was created by me in mematic
