OPINION & EDITORIAL
Dorkifying spring break
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Also by Matt Lynch:
- Time for Council to get defiant (April 23, 2003)
- From the eyes of a House Fellow (April 30, 2003)
- The retirement of a columnist (May 7, 2003)
- America's other war less certain (March 26, 2003)
- Wartime propaganda caters to dumbest common denominator (April 2, 2003)
Related Stories:
- Spring elections story misleading (December 12, 2006)
- Students deserve more rest (December 12, 2006)
- Have fun, safe spring break (March 9, 2006)
- A spring break phenomenon (March 8, 2005)
- Winter break to rejuvenate weary (December 13, 2006)
by Matt Lynch
Thursday, March 21, 2002
Spring break is supposed to be exactly what its name implies: a break from everyday life, from classes and from any sort of academic thought other than “What did my professor say about the symptoms of chlamydia again?”
But alas, this promise is only bittersweet for me. I don’t know if it’s the timing—just after midterms, with finals on the horizon—or my own disgusting attempt to justify my college education through real-life applications, but common spring break occurrences seem to trigger a relevance back to the very schoolwork I try to escape.
For example:
Communication Arts: the Interstate pull-over
In no other spring break situation is an education in rhetoric put to the real-life test with so much to lose. You establish an ethos by throwing the radar detector in the glovebox and turning the stereo to country, oldies or easy listening. You check out your rhetorical audience as it walks to your door, noting whether the cop is having a good day or ready to hook you up to the chair.
Then come the big strategic decisions. Do you appear annoyed, plead ignorance, apologize profusely or offer your wallet when the cop asks for your license, making clear that it’s OK if it’s a little lighter when he returns it (provided there is no ticket)? Options abound, but like in any tense public speaking situation, just one rhetorical slip can end in failure.
Philosophy: drunk kids who lost their friends
Philosophy is the search for deeper truths, and perhaps no one is better suited to find them than the isolated and intoxicated, since both conditions tend to wipe away the situational faŤade of everyday life.
I’ll never forget the random drunk I passed one night over break—obviously lost. He suddenly stopped, began urinating on the sidewalk and caught his balance enough to turn toward me and slur, “Where is humanity?!?” Pretty deep man, pretty deep.
American Government: The NCAA basketball tournament.
The road to the Final Four always nears its destination around spring break time, when everyone pays attention to the greatest microcosm of the Republican ideal. There’s an independent judiciary that interprets rules and wears goofy outfits. There’s a meritocracy of players, with self-interest checked by the coach.
Unity and hard work are valued; faction, selfishness and irresponsibility are not. Boundaries and rules are set to protect players from harm and unfair disadvantages, but there is freedom within those boundaries—and the rules apply equally to all.
Basketball is just a civics lesson in republican government. Want proof?
Look at the surge in popularity of the sport in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall or in China after recent democratic reforms. Coincidence? I think not.
Science lab: late-night return to the hotel
At no time is the mind more open to scientific experimentation with everyday products than the drunken return to the hotel. Curiosity abounds, with questions ranging from “I wonder if you can mix milk and vodka” to “I wonder if I can light this on fire” and “I wonder if I can make this into a pipe.”
It includes the “I wonder what those people by the pool would do if … ” questions, but the sociology of spring break is too voluminous for me to do justice to it here.
Advanced calculus: figuring out the bill
For non-science and business majors, this might be the most practical and challenging use of mathematical tools they will ever encounter. Splitting a breakfast bill eight ways, adding together food and drinks, estimating tax and tip for each party—the mathematical operations are numerous and painful, especially if you’re still feeling queasy from that milk-and-vodka experiment.
Add to that the likelihood that someone will have to do it over several times because someone will keep failing to pay or tip the right amount, and no one will have the right bills in the right denominations to make it work, and someone will have forgotten his wallet and someone else still owes someone and needs to figure the debt into the amount he pays …
For me at least, it’s a nightmare that leaves me ready to get back to the comforts of everyday academic life.
Then I realize that I never really left.
Matt Lynch (mlynch@badgerherald.com) is a junior majoring in English and political science.
