Welcome back everyone! I hope all of your spring breaks were wonderful. I’m sure some of you are sitting there trying desperately to keep your skin from peeling off.

You carry a bottle of lotion with you to class and put gallons of the stuff on to counteract the mild case of leprosy you caught over break.

So spring break is over and we are back here trying to survive another week of classes.

All we have is the fading tan and those pictures that remind us just how stupid we all act when we’ve had a little too much to drink and we’re away from Ames.

Why is it that during spring break we are able to throw all caution to the wind and do things that under normal circumstances we would never do?

It’s as if once we get out of this town we are given the power to make really bad decisions and prove to the world that yes, we are spring breakers.

But now all the sun and fun are behind us and we are back to the daily grind of school.

As I sat there in my sparsely populated class on Monday, I became painfully aware of how tough it was to come back and deal with class and responsibility.

All our bodies are destroyed from a week of no sleep and poor nutrition.

We left Ames tired of classes and workload and came back more tired than when we left, wishing we could just have one more day to sit and relax.

And then, just as we think we are ready to get back to studying, the powers-that-be throw us a curve ball and give us another excuse to slack off: St. Patrick’s Day.

It’s a simple excuse, but all we need is something minor to send us careening off the walls and plummeting into the abysmal hole of slacking.

You know what I’m talking about: missing classes, putting off assignments, and laying in front of the TV with a bag of chips, watching soap operas and reruns of bad movies.

So we all went out to celebrate the fact we are Irish or we know someone who is Irish or we’ve heard of Notre Dame and they are the Fighting Irish.

Our break rolled over into Tuesday and we missed more classes because it was the day after St. Patrick’s Day and why not miss class?

Now it’s Wednesday and we look for the next excuse to prolong our vacation.

Low and behold there is another excuse: The Cyclone game tomorrow.

Wonderful. A chance to get together with a bunch of friends and cheer on the mighty ‘Clones as they get ready to annihilate the Bruins of UCLA.

By the time the game is over (and we are on our way to the next round) everyone is so excited. So why not party a little bit more?

Next thing you know it’s 2 a.m. and you and your roommates are doing slow motion replays of a Cato dunk into the trash can.

The next day is Friday, and well, Friday is the first day of the weekend so we have another excuse to procrastinate.

You look back at the week and try to remember which classes you went to and whether you missed anything important.

You sort through the mail that has piled up on your desk over the course of the week and you find one of those nice notes from the university that says you are not doing as well as you thought you were in one or two (or three?) of the classes you missed all week.

The only saving grace is that it’s not too late to drop classes. So to keep the spring break fever alive you run over to the Registrar’s Office and drop all of your classes so you have the best excuse of them all to just sit and be a load all day: Why Not?!

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J.R. Grant is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Ohio. He is not Irish but claims to outdrink them.