It's the Tuesday after spring break. Ugh.

The first real day of getting back into the study-eat-study-nap-study routine of college life. The week of 12 hours of sleep per night is over, and it's back to Harris for home-cooked meals.

I say Tuesday is the first real day because the Monday after spring break is still exciting. Exaggerating the stories about the shady hotel where you stayed in Panama, comparing tans (and making fun of the Ohio fake bakers), showing off your new tattoo and wondering what that Chinese symbol really means.

Ah, yes - Monday was exciting. But it's Tuesday and it's time to shake the last sandy grains from your flip-flops and put the sunscreen back in storage because we all know that it will probably be snowing again by the end of the week.

If you're like me, you've been jolted back into the home stretch of the school year. Suddenly that 15 page English paper isn't just some distant assignment to be shoved off. You realize that vacationing drains your bank account and you'll have to ration your Starbucks spending for the rest of the semester. And seniors face the hard reality that they will soon be out in the professional world - and they may have to sew their collars back down.

These final weeks of school can be rough. It takes extreme amounts motivation to not neglect all educational responsibilities, let alone resist the urge to hop back on the plane to Florida. (And by motivation, I really mean parental threats to not pay tuition if we start failing).

The way I see it, we have three opinions of how to cope with these final weeks of school.

Option A: Have an enormous textbook bonfire on Cook Field in protest of final exams. Thursday, 7:30 p.m., I'll be waiting.

Option B: Write a whining editorial for The Miami Student about how you wish you were still on vacation and you think that homework is sucking the life out of you. But honestly, no one's that pathetic.

Option C: Appreciate the fact that pushing through to the end of the year is a campus-wide bonding experience. We all just came back from break, we all have get into the final swing of things. Together. Laugh about the fact that you'll soon set up camp again in King Library with an I.V. of coffee and a Vera Bradley full of fat-free granola bars.

Someday when we're old and gray (and our gerontologists make us substitute Metamucil for Starbucks), we'll look back fondly on the days when we thought that a final grade would make or break our future and we sacrificed our sleep because of it.

At the risk of sounding like an overused Hallmark card, take the time to look past the stress and frustration of schoolwork and savor the hectic commotion of college life. After all, the Tuesdays after spring break are in limited supply.