Toni Ortivez
The Paw Print
The anticipation of spring break is overwhelming when the constant string of projects and homework assignments flood over the average college student. Dreams of warm days, spending time with family, or catching up with old friends are the perfect antidotes for the stress and anxiety of school. Even the loss of one hour for daylight savings isn’t enough to dampen the preoccupation with time away. Spring break is the perfect time to relax and enjoy the time off … or is it?
Spring break tends to fall in the middle of March, and as we all know, snow doesn’t stop in Colorado until mid to late April. Let’s admit it, unless you are a snowboarder or skier, snow isn’t exactly the weather we all dream about. Typically, spring break has a tendency to become more like a winter wonderland in which the indoors are a refuge away from the ice and cold. Even on the rare days when the temperatures are above freezing, outside is still far from the perfect place to be with mud puddles and small streams flowing all around. Dreams of warm days spent outside are shattered, not to mention any travel plans.
Days spent inside are not as relaxing as one might imagine, either. By the time spring break rolls around, many professors are still trying to keep with their original schedules, even if the class is behind. Due to this need to accomplish everything in the syllabus, students are assigned projects, papers, or other work to make up for inadequate class time. Spring break has been transformed into a period in which students have plenty of time to do homework instead of recuperate from the stress of the semester. Apathy and procrastination don’t exactly constitute a first-class work ethic, much less provide for high-quality work.
The week-long break away from school and stress seems to be for naught. Not to label spring break as a bad thing, but it seems that it never goes the way one plans. Even if a trip to a different country is on the agenda, it seems that we are always being told some news which prevents those plans. This break was no exception. If a balmy trip to Mexico was in the cards, the gang wars and constant violence was enough to change a person’s mind. If travel in the states was up your alley, the rising gas prices may have prevented any long distance journeys.
Spring break, as advertised, should be a calming experience in which a college student revels in some free time and participates in some variety of merrymaking. However, with back-to-back snow storms, rising gas prices, and the government telling us where we can and cannot visit, spring break is anything but the typical vacation away from school. One week isn’t quite enough time to get all of the homework done and enjoy the break as well. Looks like the countdown for summer break will begin sooner than expected.
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