Features

　When you feel like all you have to look forward to is 75 percent off chocolate the day after Valentine’s Day, it helps to remember that Valentine’s Day isn’t really all it is hyped up to be.

　As each holiday seems to be more and more commercialized, none are as much of a “Hallmark holiday” as Valentine’s Day. As soon as New Year’s comes and goes, stores and commercials will be stocked with hearts and chocolate for the big day. “Find the right gift for your significant other,” and other similar quips on advertisements are spewn across the store.

It’s a new year and a new semester, which for the University Bookstore, means long lines of students, tons of textbooks, and an awful lot of money in exchange for said books. This new year was shown to be very futuristic and innovative on old movies and TV shows, and time will tell how modern we will be when it comes to our book buying this year. 2015 was a year predicted to have flying cars, talking garbage cans, and hover boards (according to Back to the Future, that is,) but will it be the year that textbook sales decline?

No sooner did the clock strike midnight on the night before class did I see texts and tweets from seniors that read, ‘This is my last first day of school.’ This is a moment in time when we seniors stop and think, where did time go? Not only is it a time to reflect on our last three and a half years at a university, but also a time to gear up for whatever the future holds. But we can’t be certain about what the future holds. We have today and only today. So seniors take a minute and ask, “What have I done today?”

New Year’s resolutions have been a part of holiday culture for as long as I can remember. Numerous people make goals about bettering themselves, but the real question here is how many people actually stick with their goals? Of course sticking to a plan is not always an easy task. I am sure we all know what I am taking about.

For some people, winter break is a wonderful time to catch up with friends, to spend time with their families, and to just generally take a break from the rush and the work of college. However, for some people, these few weeks are a long break from the friends that they have made at college.