Dear Reader,

Week nine is in full swing, and as the holidays loom, I thought I would address some of the most common questions people have about how to navigate college, winter break and the deluge of special occasions and family events that occur around this time of year. Whether your main question is how to navigate public transit around Evanston or how to make the best of staying here all break, hopefully something in this column will make your season a little less chilly and a little more joyful.

How do I get to the airport? Who can I share an Uber with? Is the class GroupMe a good place to ask to split an Uber?

The quick answers: the bus, I’ve never had to try and I suspect not.

The long answer is that once you know how to use it, taking the bus to the airport is so absurdly easy that calling an Uber that probably costs more than thirty dollars, or sharing it with whichever GroupMe denizen has deigned to reply to you, is not worth it unless you are traveling to the airport in the dead of night or before 5 a.m.

People usually dither for at least a year before figuring out how to do it, but here’s the rundown: The Pulse Dempster Line or 250 bus goes literally from Davis Station (I promise it’s like a 10 minute walk from campus) to O’Hare Airport’s rental car facility, where it stops. From the rental car facility, you go up any escalator and you take a mini train directly to your terminal. They call the rental car facility the Multi-Modal Facility, which alarms people, but it’s the same thing. The bus costs two dollars, and the whole journey from start to finish takes about an hour and a half, compared to an Uber of undetermined but often exorbitant price, which takes a minimum of 40 minutes and often closer to 50. You do the math.

To get back home, you can do the exact same thing, but in reverse. You just have to follow the directions for “Airport Transit” at O’Hare, take an escalator up, and then go to the MMF and board your bus. Here’s to never taking an Uber to O’Hare in daylight again!

I’m staying here for Thanksgiving/Winter Break and I have no idea what to do!

As someone who has spent every one of my (soon to be four) college Thanksgivings not at home, I can tell you that it’s not the end of the world, but it sure did feel like it at first! Luckily, you’re smart (because you read this column), so you’ve given yourself plenty of lead time.

What I did to make my first Thanksgiving at college less terrifying was to pitifully mention it to as many people as possible, with the result that I had a plan A, B, C and D when choosing what to do and where to go for Thanksgiving. This was less a result of my winning character and more to do with the fact that a) people feel obliged to be nice on a holiday built around the concept of being nice, and b) you’re absolutely not alone in being at Northwestern during Thanksgiving, so many dorms and organizations do mini Thanksgivings, and it’s very easy (see reason a) to finagle an invite even if you’re not a resident or member.

Of course, the real problem I had was the 24 hours before my first on-campus Thanksgiving: campus cleared out, it snowed and I suddenly felt like I was the only person on my dorm floor and also, possibly, the entire world. All my new college friends were in transit, so there was no one to call, and so I spent a few hours pacing the floor of my single, went for a walk and generally panicked. The best thing I can suggest for moments like these is to watch a movie about the exact thing that’s happening to you, like “The Holdovers.” Or watch one that’s appropriately dramatic about how lonely you feel, like “The Martian” or “Frances Ha.” Like I’ve said before, no matter how isolated you feel, you’re not the only one. If it gets really bad, start walking around your dorm and finding the other stragglers to form a weird little friend group, and generally treat this whole interlude like a side plot in the story of your life. It’s one of the few times that you know you will only be lonely for a very specific period of time, before everyone is forced to come back for finals (or Winter Quarter).

What do I get my cousin/friend/aunt/mother/dog for Christmas/Hanukkah/winter solstice?

If you have the grand good fortune (like I do) of going to college in a different state from your family, do what I do and get them various Chicagoland souvenirs of varying price points (I scale by how much I like them, but you can use other metrics, obviously), which they cannot complain about because the souvenirs you have gotten them are Authentic™. My favorite iteration of this is giving everyone “Christmas” cards that are just postcards from the Art Institute of Chicago.

How do I deal with the deluge of relatives and friends asking me how college is?

The most important thing to realize about people asking you stressful things like “What’s your plan after school?” and “How are the friends you’ve met so far?” is that they really aren’t expecting an answer. It’s just that the only thing they know about you is that you’re an undergraduate in college, and those are the only things they remember people asking them, or at least the only things they can remember from when they were your age. Of course, questions like this usually speed my heart rate up to a rate that is genuinely dangerous.

When moments like this happen, I like to remind myself that the real question they are asking me is, “Do you have anything we could possibly talk about that might make this conversation less excruciating?” Just respond with a funny story from class, an interesting thing that happened to you in the last three months or something cool you learned last week. They won’t call you on it, probably, and if they do, just laugh like they said something really funny and then immediately ask them a question about their job.

The holidays can be difficult for a lot of reasons, sometimes contradictory ones. They can feel incredibly lonely and stifling all at once. So make sure you take time this season to take care of yourself. And whether your holidays are filled with the silence of snow on the Bobb basketball courts or many, many awkward conversations about college, know that Best Guess is here for you, if you ever need advice.

If you have a pressing problem you need advice on, or a response to this, email [email protected] with “Best Guess” in the subject line.

Mika Ellison is a Medill senior. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.