Staying up ‘til three a.m. watching reruns of The Nanny? Find yourself sleeping through breakfast and lunch and waking up just in time for an early dinner? Feeling sluggish, lethargic, and, if put into an un-definable word, simply “blah”? Facebook-stalking your “frenemies” until you know their favorite movies, quotations and highest weekly score in Data Worm?

Don’t be alarmed. I’m no doctor – and have no intention of ever willingly working closely with needles and blood – but I can safely say that if you have any of these symptoms, you’re not alone.

A phenomenon seems to be sweeping through Stony Brook this semester. Usually, we all sit anxiously on edges of our seats, marking off big, fat, red X’s on our calendars and secretly begging January to end faster, so we can all be reunited at college again.

This time, it feels different. Numerous magazines have proclaimed this aforementioned “blah” feeling as a strong case of the Winter Blues. Personally, I think it’s a combination of that and something else. The sheer pleasure of breaking up with your droning alarm clock and ditching that snoring roommate. Your mom surprising you with homemade blueberry waffles on Saturday morning. Having a job you got at 16 take you back and pay triple what you make on campus. Maybe even taking that afternoon winter class that’s guaranteed to get you an easy A.

For me, a lot of it has to do with being back in the city. The chicken-and-rice cart on 53rd and 6th, the trendy SoHo boutiques and being able to hail a taxi quicker than Carrie Bradshaw. With all this and more, who would want to go back?

Nevertheless, blue as some of us are about heading back to school, nothing good comes to those who whine. So my mentality is this: Go back with a smile on your face and an open mind for the spring.

It’s officially a new semester. And though for some of us this means that our parents will no longer be washing our laundry and that we’ll have to make up with our hated alarm clocks – it’s alright. Because a new semester is like a new novel – long and intimidating at first, but soon to be filled to the brim with adventures.

So, this semester, do something different. Try something fresh and fun; something you wanted to do in the fall but couldn’t bring yourself to try. Hit the gym. Start a blog. Start a club. Join a club. Take a bartending class (check the basement of the Student Union). Try a free Zumba lesson (basement of the Student Activities Center). Plan a mass snowball fight. Get a car (or, if you’re anything like me, first get a driver’s license). Redecorate your dorm room. Get started early on that Roth Regatta float you’ve been mentally sketching since freshman year. Learn to make friendship bracelets. Fix up your resume, and keep tabs with the Career Center to see when and where the next major job fair will be. Get your GPA up to where you’ve always wanted it to be. Check out comedian Aziz Ansari this Tuesday night. Look into rushing a Greek organization. Visit us at The Statesman. Learn to cook more than Cocoa Pebbles and milk. See a show at the Wang Center.

Anything.

Just get out there, see your old friends, make some new ones and have a blast. In a few years, when we’re working 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. desk jobs, we’ll miss the anarchical freedom we once had at Stony Brook. After all, these are supposed to be the best four (or five or six) years of our lives – so why not make them count? Besides, Ramen Noodles somehow taste best in college.

So here’s to a fabulous semester. I sincerely hope any troubles you experience this semester last as long as my New Year’s resolutions. And that’s only because they were non-existent.