There is nothing more painful to a first world college student than waking up on the Monday morning after spring break. Months spent in anticipation of a glorious week devoid of all adult responsibilities come crashing down in a sea of research papers, applications and ridiculously long to-do lists.

Recovering from spring break requires intense detoxification from people and sun. Ice cream, Taco Bell and bad Netflix movies will likely be called in. If you’re brave enough to accept the consequences, you might even consider indulging in a binge-worthy show and forsaking human interaction and decent grades when given the opportunity to watch seven seasons of a show in one sitting.

You may need to dress casually and definitely need to forgo pants or anything not made of elastic. Outings should be made sparingly and with caution. Abilene is a small town and you don’t know who you’ll run into. If you’re caught at United buying pints of ice cream and other necessities, claim it’s for a friend who just got dumped.

After spending the first eight weeks of the semester looking forward to one week of freedom, eight more weeks now loom between us and summer. Console yourself in the knowledge that with summer comes eight weeks to indulge in nothingness and shirk all responsibility. Unless, of course, you’re one of those career-oriented people with an internship, jobs and LinkedIn profiles to stalk. If you’re one of them, you can say goodbye to the carefree college life and accept your fate as a corporate zombie.

To the rest of you I say it does not have to end. Preserve your fake tan with religious devotion and ignore the persistent nagging of adulthood. Spring break. Spring break forever, my friends.