Last year, I complained about the excessive amount of rain at the beaches of Brazil, which caused me to spend most of my days indoors. This year, I’m complaining about the excessive amount of sun—I know, I really can’t make up my mind. Sun is great—don’t get me wrong—but too much sun is certainly a problem. We all need a little rain or shade sometimes.

Every day during my vacation, I would wake up, walk outside to my balcony, look at the sky and realize it was just as blue as the ocean. I was so used to the rain on the previous January break that it was almost impossible to believe this amazing weather! My thought then, was that I had to take advantage of the sun, which meant I also had to spend most of my day at the pool or at the beach. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? That’s the problem… It was so wonderful that I ended up leaving out some important things I should’ve done this vacation.

As a senior, I should have be celebrating that most of my college applications are done, and worry about nothing else. Just kidding—we’re not done with school yet, seniors! There’s lots of reading to do, Internal Assessments to fix, and mock exams to study for. The sun during vacation is a villain. It lures us outside and keeps us there until we’re brainwashed from the heat and completely ignore all the work we still have to finish. This applies to all grade levels! It’s obviously more fun to spend time by the pool or beach, but that doesn’t erase the fact that work has to be done by the first day of school.

Another problem with the sun: it burns you. Some of us can’t help being super white, but even the super white want to enjoy the sun. When it’s too sunny, even FPS 60 isn’t enough to block the burning rays. Then we must face the following dilemma: enjoy the sun with everyone else, or stay at home and feel excluded. It’s not fair for exceptionally white people! I don’t really have that problem, but I know many people who do, so if you’re one of them, I hope you at least applied sunscreen twice a day…

It’s also ironic how we’re all like, “I need to lay off the carbs for bikini season,” then as soon as vacation hits, we run to the beach or pool and order a load of fattening foods. We lay down our belongings on a nice table with an umbrella and raise our fingers, quick to order pastels, french fries, corn, and ice cream. Then we look at our swollen stomachs and complain about all the food we’ve been eating. I blame the sun! All that unhealthy goodness is characteristic of vacation: we want to eat whatever we feel like eating, whenever we feel like eating. It’s not like we eat pastels every day, so it makes sense that when we go on vacation we want to enjoy the good food.

I love the sun; it’s really great, especially when you travel to the coast. But the sun is also a problem, because it completely throws you off of your routine: you work less, eat more, and get sunburnt. I’m starting to believe I’m the problem with all this, and that maybe next year I should go skiing instead…