The month of January is a great time to be a college student. Almost all of it is devoted to winter break, so for me, this is a time of peace and serenity. But for my sister, who is a senior at Ellenville High School, it’s crunch time. She is in the throes of her college applications and for the past few weeks she’s been in overdrive, cranking them out one after another.

Her work ethic is impressive considering all that hangs in the balance. I fled my dorm just as Omicron was beginning to swallow the city whole, and schools are toying with the idea of another online semester. It’s a terrible environment to have to face when getting ready to go to college, and my experience isn’t much of a vote in favor of attending. Somehow I’ve gotten through three semesters, but all of them were dominated by COVID. Even this last semester that just managed to be held in person had a tentative, wary feel to it. I’m nearly halfway done with my college education and I couldn’t tell you what it’s actually supposed to be like.

Obviously, none of this has been very helpful to my sister. A few nights ago, she told me plainly that she’s not looking forward to college much at all. She’s realizing that it isn’t going to be as fun as the movies told us it would be, and I can’t say much to convince her otherwise. Still, she said that no matter what, getting out of the house trumps everything, so she committed to the application process burdened by its seeming futility, or as she said to me, with “terror and despair.” She’s a bit dramatic, but you get the idea.

I came home for break just as things were getting down to the wire. She was in the thick of preparing her art portfolio and still had a stack of essays of various lengths to write. For the first time in four months, I didn’t have any schoolwork to do, so she enlisted me as her editor. I was there to make everything sound more “college-y,” as she put it. So, I did the usual, changed the three syllable words to four syllable synonyms, sprinkled in a few semicolons. While she was slinging watercolors, I imparted my wizened college sophomore touch to her responses.

My sister is applying to fashion programs, so she’s really going to have to nail down the “art speak.” She is as I write this professing her love for The Emperor’s New Groove, a movie in which a king turns into a llama, so there’s room for improvement. But I think she has the chops to get anywhere, you should just see the quilt she made me for my dorm. There’s still that nagging chance that the art studios will shift to online garment creation, but my sister has made the gamble and we’ve decided to be hopeful. Everything has a rosy glow over winter break, but I do think the college experience is set to make its return.