Written by Isaac Davis
As an international student I can attest to the world-wide fame and reputation of the American “Spring Break”. For years I was baffled at the rumours: Were the movies accurate? I could not comprehend an entire nation’s higher education students entirely upending their regular academic lifestyles for a week of sin and sunburn. I found myself asking what could prompt such a migratory feat? Now, in my third year at Roanoke College, I believe I may finally be able to make some estimations.
The warm climate and rising temperatures appear to tease out nomadic traits. There’s now no reason to stay indoors in dark heated shelter. A certain guilt arises if you fail to get out into nature and take advantage of the long awaited sun. Soon these desires become uncontrollable and you must uproot and search for more rays.
Work schedules play an additional role, as the pressures of your four or more classes are finally unavoidable. Tensions begin to rise as study arbitrarily denies you leisure time. Attempts to combine academics and hammock social gatherings are fraught with ukulele distraction and often compound issues. Late nights sap the last of your emotional strength.
The judgement of the spring college student is under attack. Heat and humidity lead to perpetual dehydration, denying any thoughts beyond the law of diminishing marginal utility and the realisation that things need change. Sleep deprivation and a wardrobe of clean summer clothes affirms spring break migration is the only option. With limited time there can only one cure for the chronic detriments of midterms: a Spring Break of mayhem.
Use the last of your energy to scrape the quarters from that work station, reach for your Ray-Bans and join the scantily clad herd on a 12 hour drive to paradise (Florida).
