Break has been over for a week now and I could not be happier. It's not as if I don't enjoy spending time with my family, in fact going home helps me realize how much I miss them. However, in general, breaks from the University of Dayton tend to be a lot more stressful than they should be for me.

For one, I hate driving that four-hour trek from Dayton to Cleveland. I will admit it: I am an angry driver. You can ask anyone who has been in the car with me. I can be stopped for the best of reasons and I will still be freaking out if it is preventing me from getting to where I need to be: "A funeral procession!? I am really stopped for a funeral procession right now? Way to pick a good time to die; Burger King is running a buy one, get one chicken sandwich deal for a limited time only!"

Although I truly detest driving, I still do make the effort to go home every break. First off, I really do love my family and I look forward to time I get to spend with them. But ever since embarking off to college four years ago, I have found another reason to go home. I now feel this overwhelming obligation to go home in order to help my dad out. No, it's not to help him with yard work or anything like that; it's much more important.

When I left for school in 2008, I basically left my dad in an estrogen war zone. It's just him, my mom and my two teenage sisters living at home now. All he can do to keep his sanity is wage one battle after another with these women. I get calls from him every week, admittedly more during certain weeks of the month than others, where I can just hear the anguish in his voice. He tells me stories about low-cut tops, skirts that are too short and of the constant barrage of contradiction coming from these ladies that can only be described as psychological warfare. So I feel like I have a calling to go home and help him in these epic battles.

However, I will say my dad is much stronger than I am. After two weeks back home with my sisters, I can barely control the voices in my head telling me to run and never look back. I do try to create some camaraderie between us all. I guess it's just my UD blood, but to do this I instinctively set up a flip cup tournament. It seldom works out though, my youngest sister can never seem to chug her beer fast enough. OK, that's a joke, but to be honest, I don't have much in common with 13-year-old and 16-year-old girls. And if I did, I would probably have much bigger personal problems to deal with.

Even though I do find breaks to be more stressful than they should be, I really do enjoy going home. I love my family very much even though my house can be crazy at times. Also, being home makes me further appreciate the lifestyle I live at Dayton. All in all, I am glad to be back at school, but I'm also looking forward to my next trip back up to Cleveland to be amid all the madness.