Ah, summer. My favorite season of the year. After next week (let’s try not to think about that), it’ll be three months of sun and swim.

Though most people consider summer a break between school years, I’ve always thought of the school year as a break between summers. You know, like Monday through Thursday is a time to rest between weekends.

Summer is a time for exploration and excitement. It’s a time to travel. It’s a time to meet new people, have new experiences and create a new identity.

For the many students (like me) who have spent their entire lives in Iowa, summer is a time to explore other places, cultures and environments.

This summer, I will be traveling to New Mexico for a couple weeks with an English class. I’ve never been west of the Dakotas, so this will be a very new experience for me. Since Santa Fe is close to 500 miles south of Ames, I imagine I’ll come back as a giant sunburnt freckle.

It’s amazing how much you can learn in a new environment. Recently I took a weekend trip to St. Louis. I went there on the Greyhound, which was an educational experience in itself.

My friend was visiting Saint Louis University. The school is right in the middle of a lower-class neighborhood in the heart of the city. There was poverty just a few blocks from the university like I have never seen before.

But around the SLU campus, there is a little fence that manages to put the school in its own universe.

The buildings inside the fence are ornate and new, while right outside the fence the neighborhood is dirty and poverty-stricken.

Inside the fence, the air smells lightly of flowers. Outside the fence, the air smells like a combination of gasoline and mustard.

Due to wind direction and the way buildings are placed up at SLU, it was colder and windier off campus than on.

I tried to speak to some SLU students about the poverty right outside their school.

They assured me that whenever anyone from outside came on campus, their Department of Public Safety was on him in a minute. They also told me no one ever walked down there, especially not at night. In other words, just don’t worry about it.

There is a lot of student activism at SLU. In fact, while I was there a large portion of the student body was up in arms about poverty. They were so concerned about this that they went on a hunger strike to demonstrate what living conditions are like … in Iraq.

Apparently they were trying to raise money for water filters for the Iraqis. I approached some of the activists and asked why they were so concerned about the Iraqis when there was massive poverty right outside their fence.

They told me my idea of helping the poor in St. Louis was an excellent idea and suggested I start a committee on it.

To me, SLU is an excellent metaphor for college life – the world is going on around you, but you’re shut off in your own happy little community.

College is the time to get an education, and I think we’ve all realized that most of our collegiate learning doesn’t come from textbooks or homework. Viewing another area of the country – or the world – can be a real eye-opener.

For the past few years, the Daily has had columnists taking a semester abroad write a weekly column on what it’s like to travel to another nation. This semester, Amie Van Overmeer did an excellent job showing us, through her personal experience, what it’s like to be an American studying in Spain.

But you don’t have to go outside the United States to find new experiences.

This summer, I suggest that students who are spending the break at Iowa State or at home take at least a weekend to explore some place they’ve never been.

Traveling is not always super-expensive – the Greyhound to St. Louis only cost me $80, and since we were visiting the school, student ambassadors let us stay with them for free. Road trips are always fun, too.

People traveling to other places often rethink their religion, their politics and their way of life. Hearing people spout off statistics about poverty is one thing, but actually seeing it with your own eyes is quite another.

Iowa is a pretty nice state, all things considered, but you can learn so much by venturing outside your comfort zone. This shouldn’t be too hard to do this summer, especially if said exploration destination has a beach.

Getting out of your regular environment will make it a lot easier to try new things.

Enough with looking forward to the summer. My two-month stretch as opinion editor is coming to an end, and I’d like to look back on it for a little bit.

I’ve always thought of the opinion page as a meeting of minds, and both the columnists and letter writers have proven that once again. I asked my columnists to write more about local issues, and they met my challenge, producing insightful columns on everything from the Iowa Legislature to the Government of the Student Body.

Many Daily readers also used these pages to start a dialogue on many different issues, both by posting comments online or writing letters to the editor. Letter writers these past few weeks have taken on many topics, including the Confederate flag, the baseball and men’s swimming program cuts and the merits of evolution vs. creationism.

I was not able to run everyone’s letters, but I thought I’d give you guys a few tips on how to get published.

No 1: Never use HTML. The Eudora program at the Daily makes it very difficult to read these letters; they often show up looking like this:

 " 

 " if they don't open up blank.
No 2: Always include year and major if you are a student, or title and program if you are a member of the ISU faculty or an organization. Include your group affiliation if it's relevent to the letter (e.g., member of ISU softball team if commenting on the baseball cut). Other letter writers need to provide their place of residence. Other contact info, such as phone numbers, is always a plus.
No 3: Avoid personal attacks or inappropriate language. For example, while "Jocelyn Marcus is misguided in her efforts to expand the student body's horizons" is acceptable, "Jocelyn Marcus is a moron who should beaten senseless by an angry mob" is not.
No 4: Stick to the guidelines. While I will print letters over 200 words, those that go into the quadruple digits are either discarded or severely cut. Letters mailed to the Daily rather than e-mailed have to be typed up by me personally, so those especially need to be kept short.
Now back to my columnists. Congratulations to Sam Wong, who was named a Don Biggs Constructive Critic of the Year for taking on everyone from the Bush administration to the ISU administration. This year Sam has consistently produced outstanding work, not just for a measly freshman but for anyone.
Good luck to Bryan Nichols and Elton Wong, who will graduate next week. You guys provided the ISU community with a Thursday section that was both insightful and often hilarious.
Tim Paluch will be following me as opinion editor this summer and next year, and I'm sure he'll do a great job. While I don't agree with his extreme liberalism, distrust of government officials and hateful attitude toward Gap V-neck sweaters, he is a talented writer.
Zach Calef and Rachel Faber, who will be back next year, added unique perspectives to the opinion section. Zach provided an interesting viewpoint as an unabashed conservative, and Rachel's relentless support of human rights and the underdog - both in Iowa, America and abroad - I hope made us all think a little more about some serious issues, including immigration.
OK, now the hard part. I have to apologize to all my columnists for being a total idiot. I sent you guys two or three reminders strongly encouraging you to attend the Daily luncheon today, and then I overslept and ending up missing it.
I hope you guys had fun without me or will at least enjoy me making a fool out of myself by admitting this to the Daily's thousands of readers.
And to everybody else reading this, have a great summer and try to explore someplace else, for me. I promise you, you'll be surprised at what you can learn.
Jocelyn Marcus is a junior in English from Ames. She is opinion editor of the Daily. She will be writing for the Daily this summer and will save the rest of her thank yous for then. Good luck on finals, everybody!