Sit back, fasten your safety belt, close the guard rail securely and keep all body parts inside your classrooms until the ride, er, until the next two weeks come to a complete stop. Do not attempt to throw yourself bodily from classes just yet. It will end soon, and then the bingeing known as spring break can begin.
It is yet another gawdawful, gorgeous sunny day outside as this is being written. The sounds of skateboarders, happy children and Frisbee players waft through the windows of the Emerald office. Just remember, those people aren’t in classes, they aren’t being productive, and they’ll pay dearly for it. They are pure evil, tempting others with visions of joyful outdoor activities, and the Emerald editorial board hopes their grades reflect that evil.
All we need to do is hang on. Tomorrow is March 1, the beginning of the month in which spring break occurs. Spring break itself is only 23 days away. Sit tight for three weeks, do your homework, go buy those textbooks (remember those?) that you’ll need for the final, and we’ll all make it out alive. The bigger question is whether we’ll make it out of spring break alive.
We’re certainly not advocating any sort of debauchery (free sex) or hedonism (total intoxication) during our one cheap, lousy week of vacation. By the way, couldn’t they take a few days from winter break and add it to spring break? After the fourth week of winter break, it gets old anyway. Wouldn’t those days be better spent on the beach, in the sun, rolling around naked and covered in alcohol? Uh, sorry. That’s not exactly what we meant.
Some people — even some editorial board members– will be spending spring break being productive: training for a summer job, volunteering at a social service agency or spending time with parents. Those activities probably rank really, really low on most students’ lists of desirable spring break adventures, but the students undertaking them are awfully noble, aren’t they?
The rest of us are breathlessly waiting for a rip-roarin’, snortin’ good week of spring break fun. So try to be good. Go to class a few more times, even when it’s incredibly sunny and mild enough for shorts and a tank top. Better attendance will make professors more amenable to our next request: Please go easy on us for these final weeks! Instructors are just as susceptible to that silly, scintillating spring sensation coursing through the veins. The sun affects faculty too.
OK, it’s time to go. Despite using the phrase “spring break” a total of 11 times in this article, spring break isn’t any closer. If professors can have a little mercy and students can give a little more effort, together we can all make it to the top of the giant hill and scream aloud in unison as the roller coaster dives toward the end of the month, the end of the term and the end of our imprisonment in classrooms. Viva spring break!