So this is the opening of my column. There is nothing creative here. No clever talk saying that it’s another Wednesday. No talk of bird crap or snow. It’s just a boring opening.

That is because this university, in all of its academic glory, has sucked all the creative energy right out of me. All the tests and papers have piled up to the point of suffocation.

I go around in a haze, staggering to and from class not talking to people and staring at the ground.

I’ve seen all of you doing the same thing. The walks to campus have become a death march. You drag yourself through the drab, mundane Iowa gray, counting down the days, even hours, until your last test on Thursday morning or that lab on Friday afternoon…

Then, as if the sky opens up and the sun gleams directly above this campus, everyone rushes to cram as much luggage and as many people into their tiny cars as possible for the long awaited SPRING BREAK.

Ah yes, it’s that time of year again. I’m sure that I don’t have to tell any of you that there are only a few more days until this magical week. A week that is cherished among the college community.

A simple mentioning of the word inspires visions of sun-soaked beaches and an endless parade of stingily-drunk, sun-starved, red-nosed, crazy college coeds.

Visions of late night drinking binges, pounding headaches made worse by the sun and small one-bedroom hotel rooms that become refuges for hundreds of intoxicated partiers.

I’m sure some of you have been crossing off the days since classes resumed. Well, all the waiting and anticipation is almost over.

Friday’s the day — the day that many of you will begin marathon road trips with way too many people in a car. A trip that will start off with all the excitement of a young child at Christmas, but by the 12th hour of a cramped back seat, an exam may seem like a pretty good option.

When you finally get there, you realize that your hotel room is not the palatial penthouse that the brochure depicted, but merely a larger closet with a bed and something that barely passes health code for a bathroom.

You figure it is going to be a lot harder, than originally planned, to stuff the 12 people you came with into a room designed for four (Dammit! It looked bigger in the brochure).

But you smile because you are finally there. You are miles away from Ames and all those classes, and ,thankfully, out of that car that was beginning to smell like a stale sock. So…

IT’S TIME TO PARTY!

A few drinks later you notice that one of your friends that made the trip with you is missing, and you begin to worry about where he/she might be.

But your other friend just bought another drink for you, and you figure that the missing person will turn up some time (You hope so because you promised his/her mother that you’d watch out for him/her).

Later on, your friend is still missing and your drinking companion is slowly losing consciousness and beginning to mumble something about how the sun is the main reason for his/her drunkenness.

So it’s time to round everyone up, head for the hotel, mainly to drop the real drunk people off because they’re slowing the rest of you down, clean-up and then cruise the bar scene.

In the morning, your friend is still missing and you figure that he/she must have been arrested or decided to walk back to Ames. You take the obvious choice and decide that they must have walked back to Ames so you go on about your day.

You live out the rest of the week the same way: lost somewhere between a state of intoxicated splendor and hung-over pain, so bad at times you tell the Lord you will never drink again.

You get ready to head home and discover that your friend is still missing. But it’s OK, they’ve got to be back in Ames by now.

---

J.R. Grant is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Ohio.