The three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are simultaneously my favorite and least favorite weeks of the year. On one hand, they’re the most beautiful weeks at Yale—there’s usually snow, the decorations are beautiful, and there are so many fun events going on. On the other hand, exams and papers are looming ahead.

I also remember these three weeks in senior year being stressful. At my high school, homecoming was the week before Christmas break. I was juggling to balance Spirit Week planning (hey, figuring out costumes is serious work) with my college applications and a pile of homework that never seemed to decrease. In that spirit, here are two tips to manage the stress and the holiday cheer.

Recently, a lot of my friends have been tossing around the “one-half” idea. We’re sophomores (read: we’re old). Two years into college and we feel old.

No, maybe it’s not age. Maybe we just feel like we know this place. For almost two years, we have grown and Yale has grown. Exciting things are happening on campus: a new batch of Yale College Council Officers will be elected in the next few days, Yale will open a brand new college in Singapore in 2013, and two new residential colleges will open their doors to students in 2015. Yale is in motion.

Over spring break, I had the opportunity to attend the “50th New England Complex Fluids Workshop” held annually at Yale. My lab professor–Professor Eric Dufresne, who I will be working with this summer–is on the organizing committee for the conference. He thought the workshop would be a good opportunity for me to learn more about the world of Soft Matter Physics.

One of my favorite classes this semester is called Survey of Theater & Drama. The class tracks the development of theater from ancient religious rituals to theater in the 21st Century. As part of the class, we are studying the origins of the American musical. One of the musicals that we are looking at is George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, and Ira Gershwin’s 1935 musical Porgy and Bess.