Now that the new semester has started, I’m sure all of you have focused your attention on the most important page of this new chapter in academia.

Clearly, I am talking about Spring Break.

You might think it’s far too early to talk about Spring Break but I put it to you, Iowa State, that thinking about Spring Break is the only thing that will get you through the dismal melancholy that is January. In fact, you should start saving right now because if you’re anything like me, you have the financial planning skills of a carp.

But I’m not going to give you a parental-type lecture on money management or a pep talk about trucking through the coming semester. In this column, I’m going to tell you where to go for your Spring Break. Many people will tell you that South Padre or Daytona Beach are the hot spots, or try and get you to turn your dollars into pesos.

And if you really want to lose your digital camera and the clothes off your back and run the risk of getting trampled at a foam party, then by all means, Iowa State, go to those places. However, I would suggest heading west and going skiing or, preferably, snowboarding in Colorado.

Already, people are looking up with a whiny expression in their eyes saying “But I wanna go where it’s WARM.”

I admit, the negative-Kelvin temperatures that we’ll be experiencing in Iowa this month would cause anybody to long to be whisked away (actually, you will have massive travel problems) to a pristine (actually dirty) beach filled with half-naked, hard-bodied (nobody has worked out all winter) girls (actually just guys trying to get laid) and icy cold (lukewarm) beer (actually horse piss) while you party (drink enough alcohol to cripple a mastodon) ’til the sun comes up (probably accurate).

They have good beer in Colorado and the bottom of Arapahoe Basin is actually called “The Beach” by the locals. Locals who, by the way, are in good shape because they’ve been skiing or snowboarding all winter.

You also must consider that the medical expenses in Colorado (knee reconstruction, weeks in traction) are far more socially acceptable than those in South Padre (stomach pumping, penicillin shots).

If you can’t ski or snowboard, learn. Join the ski or snowboarding club or make a trip out to the ski slopes in Boone or Fun Valley. Then you can “catch sic air” at Steamboat like my girlfriend and I did over winter break.

I should mention here, in the interest of accuracy, that I never “caught sic air.” The air I caught might have had a snuffly nose along with mild intestinal cramping, but was never “sic.” If the air I caught was “sic,” it was entirely unintentional and probably resulted from me going over a jump faster than I had planned and flailing about like someone who’d just flown through a cloud of a nerve gas.

I would also point out that you should make friends with people in Colorado so you can stay out there for free. A friend of mine not only put us up in Steamboat for several days, but pointed out the multitude of illegal activities in which you can engage while in Colorado. My morality, along with the thought of what my girlfriend’s parents might do to me, prevented me from engaging in said activities.

The only bad thing I can think of regarding going out to Colorado is that you have to drive through Nebraska. Nebraska is 454 miles of nothing. Omaha might be “The Good Life,” but after you get past Omaha, the sign carrying Nebraska’s state motto is a monument of lies.

Just consider it the price you pay to forego the penicillin shot.