Thanksgiving is just a few days away and while some professors have taken it upon themselves to skew the holiday with petty, last-minute homework assignments, most of us will use our time to catch up on our favorite television shows, get a head start on Christmas shopping and craft elaborate gourmet sandwiches from leftovers.

I would, however, like to assign a simple task for everyone’s extended weekend, as well as the upcoming semester break: take detailed notes on the depths of your boredom.

I hear a lot of people bashing DeKalb by saying that there is nothing to do on the weekends other than planting yourself in front of a TV to watch marathons of Seinfeld reruns or play Xbox Live.

My contention with this myth is that it is only propagated by those who never try to do anything else.

And really, how are your plans over break going to be any different?

Sure, you will get to see your family, drink with old friends from high school and stumble around in a turkey-fueled state of lethargy after gorging yourself with obscene amounts of carbohydrates and tryptophan that, on any other day of the year, would be deemed socially unacceptable.

But when you are two weeks into winter break, even those activities are going to start feeling routine and boring.

I get that nothing can replace being with your family. I even get that DeKalb is not the easiest place to make friends and that it is easier to just go home every weekend and hang out with your hometown friends.

What I don’t get is the way that everyone blames the city and campus community for not supplying them with an abundance of weekend plans.

The truth is that DeKalb, like any other place, is what you make of it. There is no city in the world where the scene finds you. You have to be willing to put yourself out there and find ways that DeKalb can cater to your interests.

When you do that enough times, you will start to see familiar faces because chances are that there are other people with similar interests trying to do the same thing.

If you can transform those familiar faces into friends, I promise that those friendships will be much more rewarding in the long run since they are based on shared interests and passions instead of, “Hey, we grew up in the same place.”

So I encourage you to take notes over break. My hope is that you will see that DeKalb has as much potential for fun as you allow it.

In the last two weeks, I have seen one of my favorite comedians, attended an amazing concert and enjoyed one of the most consistently-good, open mic’s I have ever encountered.

In addition, there are always plays, academic lectures and sporting events going on year-round. If none of these interest you, then enjoy your syndicated Seinfeld and video games.