Welcome Home - The Less Obvious Pros and Cons

...Last year there was snow.
This year there is fog. 

Until the "IT'S CHRISTMAS EVERYONE" feeling really sets in, I need to look elsewhere for the happy in my holidays w/o the snow. 1st quarter grades? Probably not the best place to look. Coming home for two and a half weeks and pretending that ALEKS, math, and chemistry never existed? That's a start.

Costco Creme Brulee. Easy to access
at home, a thing of fiction at UW.

When you come back home, you start realizing things you never realized before about home. 1) The carpet all of a sudden feels like the worlds best memory foam mattress compared to the industrial grade "carpet" in the dorms. 2) The vegetables are cooked correctly at home. 3) As good as you think your food stash is at the dorm, the one at your house has always been better. 4) It's a good thing you don't have to wake up early during break because once you brought the alarm clock to college you forgot to put a new one back in your room. 5) If you want to watch your big screen TV, you don't have to awkwardly fight people out of the floor lounge like you do at college. These are the pros.

Then come the cons.

My temporary Facebook/Words
With Friends command post. *sigh*

1) You forget dishes and housework ever existed UNTIL you come home. And once you do remember these tasks exist, all of a sudden they take much, much longer. 2) Depending on a 10 inch netbook for a computer set up in your bedroom SUCKS when you've been working on a much better (and bigger) desktop at college. (Case in point why everyone else bought real laptops...) 3) To get around in Seattle for fun, all you had to do was abuse the UPASS where the bus system actually works. In Bothell, it's back to the basics and driving because community transit is basically useless. The driving part I don't mind, in fact I quite missed it. What I didn't miss were the slightly-guilty and slightly-expensive trips to the gas station.
and finally You know you live in Poplar Hall when... you realize the shower in your house is not as good as the one at college.


Oh well, cons will be cons. I'll happily take my comfy carpets, TV, and food to do a few dishes and use a smaller computer. Are there are frankly more important things to think about than "the less obvious pros and cons of home"? Probably. Family, friends, fellowship, holidays? Perhaps. But admittedly it's much easier to fill a blog with the little things than with actually useful information.


Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!