Chief Editor's Note: Happy Holidays!
I sat down to write this at 11pm after writing an essay and doing my laundry. I have to write now because I will be too busy tomorrow with yet another essay and work. This is by no means an ideal situation and I do not encourage people to book their calendars so full that there is no empty spaces left. This is just what happened.
I am constantly battling with balancing studies, work, student organisation things, and what I do in my free time. I know I am not alone in this, however, I feel like some lucky people have a feeling of the amount of rest and alone time they need and can plan their weeks accordingly. I must have been sick the day they taught about that in school. I would love to plan a self care day and stick to that plan. Instead, I procrastinate on the things I need to do and have to sacrifice my rest day in order to get them done and when I finally get around to doing them, I let my friends convince me to join them for a glass of wine. Well, I can always write that essay tomorrow… (This is a fictionalised scene and totally did not happen, like, yesterday).
It is also true that different people need different amounts of rest. In today’s society when we feel like we have to always be doing more and more and more, putting yourself first feels selfish, lazy and like you are letting future you down. I am here to tell you that this is Nonsense (by Sabrina Carpenter) and you have my permission to stick out your tongue to anyone who makes you feel this way (if you are responsible for making yourself feel that way, a mirror works fine). Rest is extremely important and recognising your need for it is such a necessary skill; one that I need to get better at.
This is one of the reasons why I have always loved Christmas as a student: it is a blissful time between courses filled with chocolate, cozy movies and most importantly, rest. I often feel that even if you have vacation days during the summer, it is harder to relax during them because there is always pressure to go to festivals and parties, to ENJOY THE WARM DAYS. WHY AREN’T YOU OUTSIDE? YOU WILL REGRET NOT HAVING GONE BUNGEE JUMPING WHEN IT IS COLD AND DARK. But during Christmas, no one is expecting you to be kayaking or swimming or having the time of your life at a festival. There is less pressure and you can just open yet another box of chocolates and start the 5th cheesy romcom of the day. Because everyone else is doing the same thing. It is a glorious time.
The new year brings a wonderful opportunity to start fresh, to try a new hobby or establish routines after you run out of chocolate and you have not seen the sun in 10 days. But before you need to face the reality of a new year, you can crack open a book you have been wanting to read, clear a path to your couch in the sea of chocolate wrappers, and take a deep breath. You deserve this rest.
Before we at BTSB could unwrap our first chocolates, we wrote about this wonderful time of year filled with gingerbread and glitter. Robi did an interview with our new freshers and Liisa wrote about the different things you can see and do at Helsinki during Christmastime. Emilia’s detailed review of Love Actually’s love stories will make you question your previous thoughts about the movie, while Audrey reviewed the different advent calendar series from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Lastly we have Anceliga’s beautiful poem about wishes and my advice for anyone finding themselves in a cheesy Christmas movie.
