Spring break is idealized by MTV as the pinnacle of the college school year. A bunch of drunken post-adolescents fly to Cancun or some other remotely tropical locale, get half-naked and rub up against each other, all the while reveling in their meaningless consumer-driven lives.
I don't think I'll partake in this rite of passage quite yet. As appealing as a week of drunken debauchery sounds, I'd prefer to do something a little more productive.
I, Tony Santorella, will be staying at the prestigious American University working, serving coffee at your local Starbucks, and writing papers. I have a few friends staying here too. I won't be all by my lonesome. Mysteriously, I have managed to accumulate a number of friends who are willingly staying here this break and I like to think it's because they want me to feel good about myself.
I don't have enough money to go anywhere special anyways. Nor do I have the temerity to ask my parents to pay for my friends and me to get hammered in a tropical locale while I'm already running them into the ground with this whole "higher education" business.
Going home is not an option. As soon as I left for school, my brother moved all of his things into my former room. It's like being a visitor in my own home and, no matter how happy I am to be out on my own, that still sort of bums me out. However, there are the benefits of free meals, laundry service, and seeing the family. But family visits don't seem like much of a break. It's more work than any regular week at AU for me.
So I reject the idea of paying a ton of money for senseless grinding and early onset alcohol poisoning when if I wanted to I could probably achieve that here, for free, on a good night. So I refute this archetypal Spring Break in favor of my own economical, industrious and restful time off.
But next year, Mtv SPrInG BrEaK CANCUN 2007 WHOOOOOOO!!!!
- Tony Santorella, freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences
Guatemala: land of the Mayans, coffee, and guerrilla warfare. The beautiful Central American country lies between Mexico and Belize to the north, and El Salvador and Honduras. At roughly seven-and-a-half quetzales (the national bird, the national currency, and a southern port city) to the U.S. dollar, the Guatemalan economy is getting stronger, but the majority of its people live in poverty and grow coffee. When the price of coffee is down, or if it's not the harvest season, the women make woven crafts and candles and the men go into the cities to work in construction of the new businesses investing in the country. From everything I've learned, it is a beautiful land with an unclear future and a bloody past.
For spring break, I will be going there. Trip leaders Kyle Taylor and Shane Mayer, Student Activities Advisor Karen Gerlach, myself, and 11 other undergraduate students are taking an Alternative Spring Break. The new Pura Vida store in the Mary Graydon Center presents us with a curious opportunity. As the second university in the country to bring in a fair trade coffee vendor, one would assume that American students have a special interest in social justice. This trip will look at the actual process of how the coffee is picked and the lives of the people who pick it.
The group has been meeting on a weekly basis since winter break to work on basic Spanish and to learn about Guatemalan history and other aspects of our trip. Personally, after taking Spanish throughout middle school and high school, I consider myself intermediate. I don't really plan on advancing my communicative skills, but I would get a kick out of talking with someone sincerely in a language other than English. Plenty of people are fluent in Spanish. Plus, we will have a guide and interpreter who will help us avoid any uncomfortable situations.
Highlights for me will be walking around the colorful city of Antigua, participating in eco-tourism (more on that below), and hiking a volcano. There are many car trips, day trips and excursions planned, but Kyle and Shane have urged us to remain flexible on the details.
This trip is an interesting alternative to what I might see if I went to Guatemala alone because of this trip's emphasis on eco-tourism - a 21st-century idea combining environmental protection, social justice and democratic ideas with conventional tourism to create something quite unconventional. This might include anything from white-water rafting to staying in "eco-shelters."
Another important aspect is to examine fair trade, up close and personal. Can fair trade really be free trade, and is it fair? How are local people handling influxes of money? These are interesting questions that I hope to address in my visit. I'm also doing a one-credit independent study of the trip in journal form. Not only would another credit be nice, but I want a thoughtful and detailed written record to be able to go back to years from now.
Central and South America are exciting places to be right now. With a move away from Western economic reforms and towards socialized programs, these regions should be venerable hotbeds of political thought. And maybe I can get one of those Evo Morales sweaters from Bolivia that are so hot right now.
- Josh Kramer, freshman in the School of Communication
Amidst all the hype that surrounds the Spring Break college phenomenon, I find myself unenthused - nearly impervious to the unbridled anticipation that accompanies plans to get "crunk," tan on the beach while nursing massive hangovers, and partying with like-minded people at some nondescript resort in the Caribbean. I don't mean to sound like I'm above it, but the thought simply doesn't rouse the level of excitement in me necessary to seek a Spring Break itinerary that mimics the one that forms the storyline of the Olsen Twins movie "Holiday in the Sun" (although I will never deny my love for the movie). In fact, the more I hear about Spring Break, the more it becomes a detestable enigma to me.
So what exactly was it that spawned my ever-growing aversion to Spring Break? Was it MTV's unrelenting coverage of loud, drunk and scantily clad college kids in various tropical locations? Was it being bombarded with obnoxious late-night commercials for "Girls Gone Wild?" I'm assuming that these were both factors, but the overarching source of most of my frustration is the negative stereotype that has begun to be associated with the college-going contingent.
Why spend hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars on a few days of debauchery that will, in retrospect, be nothing more than an alcohol-induced haze of "friendcest," disrobing and embarrassment - something that can easily be experienced while school is in session? Everyone wants to let loose and have a good time, away from any semblance of work or responsibility, but let's be honest: there's no need to be That Guy/Girl. Take advantage of the time off, but be original for goodness' sake.
Here's a surprise: I will not be traveling south this spring in search of MTV's highly sought-after Spring Break Utopia. Instead, I will be sojourning in Boston, visiting friends in a (gasp!) cold climate. It may not be the most memorable or lecherous experience I've ever had, but at least I won't end up on some raunchy DVD crusty old men can get their hands on if they call the right toll-free number.
- Cecilia Cambell-Westlind, freshman in the School of International Service
I have this magical memory from my childhood of Disney World, walking down a street, catching snowflakes on my tongue. But looking back, the brick buildings were back lot facades, and the snow was being produced in machines out of my adolescent view. A snowstorm in south Florida, I learned this year from a friend of mine here at American, is a weather phenomenon. When he saw his first snowfall this year in D.C., it had the same surreal quality as my memory at Disney.
Over spring break, I'm returning to that world of fabricated weather and giant mice. My snow-struck friend, a south Florida native, is taking me home for a week of Miami bass and male bonding.
Palm Beach County has always been sealed in the headlines for me, this mythical beach paradise full of elderly New Yorkers who don't know how to vote. I can't speak to my friend's knowledge of ballot voting, and for all I know he's been getting Botox treatments, but I know this: spring break will rock.
When I told my parents that I was planning on flying south for spring break, I expected their reaction to be something along the lines of, "But we haven't seen you in months." In actuality, they told me that if I ended up on "Girls Gone Wild" or MTV's "Spring Break" Volume 34, they'd stop paying for school. After explaining that my intentions were to stay at my friend's home, with his parents, their suspicions were calmed.
They're still a bit iffy about the fact that I've been using spring break and Palm Beach County in the same sentence, and the fact that my destination is 25 minutes from Ft. Lauderdale, but I've seen enough hot-tub pictures from their trip to Aruba that my spring break won't break any new ground.
Over the course of this semester, I've had the opportunity to visit some of my college friends' hometowns. The more places you visit, the more you realize "I'm from Philadelphia" means that they live 20 minutes down I-95 from the city in quaint exurbs. It takes time to understand a place, more time than quick introductions or name games allow.
During a recent road trip I took up into Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, I came to see a whole new and intimate side of one of my friends here. Our hometowns are a big part of who we are, 18 years of our characters. Spring break in Florida isn't just a chance to go to the Salvador Dali museum or seduce Cinderella. It's an opportunity for me to come to understand my friend, to see the place that birthed him and to forego motel fees when I do the taping for "Girls Gone Wild."
- Jeff Lambert, freshman in SOC
