I kind of like hanging out at Butler for a few days after I’m finished with my last exams. I am always anxious to see my family, but I like staying afterwards for several reasons. Which I shall list:
1. I have time to clean my room, my kitchen, my restroom, my living room… Towards the end of the semester, items tend to pile up. I know myself. I know I won’t suddenly become organized in the last days of cramming for finals. I know I won’t do laundry when my monster physics test makes menacing sounds from its corner. I know I won’t be packed and ready to go right after my last final. I definitely won’t have cleaned my refrigerator of items like milk and spinach.
2. I like spending time with my Butler friends. The people I have met at Butler are among my closest confidants (as dramatic as that surely sounds), and I often feel like I don’t have a chance to enjoy their company during the academic year. For example, I watched my roommate watch her croutons brown in the oven on Thursday. How often does that happen during the semester?
3. I have unintentionally developed a ritual at the end of each semester. For the third semester running, I ended up in the basement of Irwin library, reading Shaun Tan‘s magnificent Tales From Outer Suburbia. Obviously I budget time for this.
4. Living in the Apartment Village this semester, I first experienced the challenge of eating all perishables before leaving the campus. I like to think my roommate and I did a rather good job. All I had to throw out was some homemade whipped cream, half a stick of butter, and some carrots. We managed to eat a bag and a half of spinach in two days. I made a spinach-egg frittata on Thursday night, and this morning? Well, this was the epic morning of crepes.
A friend and I have had a long-standing date to make banana pancakes. However, I decided to admit that pancakes are not exactly my strong suit, so we made crepes instead.
The last time I had a pancake-breakfast party with a friend, this is what happened:

Looks good, right?

False!

Very false!
Crepes, besides being in my grasp skill-wise, are excellent vehicles for using up ingredients like bananas and cheese and spinach. I would include “not all at once” in that statement, except my friend concocted–and ate–a banana, spinach, cheese, and Nutella crepe. I decided to give that one a pass.
All this said, I am excited to go home for the winter break! Richmond, here I come!