You Pennsylvania Penn Staters have it pretty lucky after you're done with finals.

No matter which corner of the Keystone State you may hail from you're a four-hour drive from home -- in a worse-case scenario.

However, if you're an out-of-stater, you can sympathize with what I'm about to discuss. I'll be making my 12-hour-drive home to Greenville, S.C., where my parents moved in October from Cincinnati and, originally, Pittsburgh.

If you're from this state, read on to find out what you're not missing out on by being from a (possibly) exotic, non-Pennsylvania locale.

Here are a few reasons why you -- whether you root for the Iggles, or, more importantly, the Stillers -- should be grateful this holiday season for living semi-close to Penn State.

If you're from far, far away (not to be confused with Far, Far Away, where Princess Fiona in Shrek is from), you're familiar with that which is the Long-Ass Drive.

To prepare, you dig out every last CD in your collection for the drive.

You burn countless new mix CDs, hoping for something, anything to jazz up the trip.

If you're me, you also remind your friends that you're in for a long drive and you appreciate phone calls to break up the boredom.

(That's always a good way to judge which of your friends care if you were to die of boredom while driving.)

This is, of course, going on the assumption that snow won't slow you down.

Then that 12-hour-drive turns into something more like 15- of 16-hours.

And let's not even get into the cost of gas nowadays. (I know, I officially sound like an old woman saying that.)

Another thing that sucks about your family moving while you're in college is that you aren't able to see old friends over the holidays.

Instead you're stuck doing something random like cleaning your closets instead of catching up with friends from high school that you rarely see anymore.

It's hard to meet people at a new house if you spend very little time there. I know absolutely no one in Greenville, apart from my family.

This will probably be my fourth New Year's in a row apart from friends, simply because of the logistics of driving back to Penn State or wherever my friends are.

Last year I watched My So-Called Life on DVD and fell asleep before midnight.

This year, I'll probably spend it like Bridget Jones, wearing pajamas and drinking wine in my living room.

Way to be a college student!

Lest you think I'm completely grumpy about my drive, I must say that any distance is worth it to spend the holiday with family and/or friends.

No matter how tired I am during the trip, it all melts away once I collapse on the couch and let my new puppy hurtle himself onto my lap.

Home is home, no matter how we get there.