Toes in the Water

Ah, spring break. It's here. Let's face it, unless you live in a nice little ski-in ski-out cabin in Breck, winter is miserable. If winter were a place, it would ironically be the Heat's locker room.  Regardless, it's over. So pack your bags, we're going on Spring Break 2011. Although you have already planned out your vacation (if you haven't, you'll be more at a loss for a good time than Erik Spoelstra will be for a job at the end of the season), we've got a few points, which you should keep in mind when reviewing your plans:

1) Any good spring break involves alcohol. As nice as it is to say how badly you'd like to create wonderful memories with your closest friends (i.e. the ones you met at a hostel in Florence during your fall semester abroad) on your once-in-a-lifetime vacation to St. Thomas, chances are that you will have wreaked such havoc on your cerebral cortex that you won't be remembering much of anything. Fortunately, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook for this very reason. So when you get home, just accept those random friend requests and let the tags role in. There's nothing like piecing together a week of your life from an assortment of pictures taken by a creepy dude from Montana with only one friend. A tag is a tag. Anyways, I'm pretty sure that there are only two people in Montana so its not that weird.

2) With the weight of your soul having been crushed by a couple feet of snow this past winter, there is no site more welcome than that of clear blue water, washing up onto a sandy beach. When you're on the beach, you have only two things to worry about: getting beer and getting a tan. Talk about bi-winning. (editors' note: There is only one exception to the beach rule, and that is if you plan on spending your spring break skiing. Hitting the slopes for a day of fresh powder out west followed by a relaxing evening in your condo's hot tub is quite possibly the only experience comparable to a week on the beach in the Virgin Islands.) I don't think it's possible, but if you cannot manage to have a good time with your toes in the sand and a beer to your lips, perhaps you should attend a pity party in Miami's locker-room. I hear the emotions are running rampant down there.

3) Finally, what makes spring break so unique is the opportunity, for one week, to surround yourself with attractive people from colleges across the United States. Tired of covering their bodies with clothes that ran their course at the end of February, such as sweaters, scarves, and LeBron jerseys, college-aged kids rejoice at the prospect of indulging in minimalist attire. The only thing that we ask, for males and females, is to know your body and to know your limits when it comes to bathing suits. If you've spent all winter on the Terrence Cody diet and for some reason those crunches and bicep curls on the Friday night before your flight didn't turn you into a Greek deity, do us a favor: don a cool T-shirt and impress us all with the height of your alcohol tolerance.

One last note, be safe over break. As tempting as it can be to cut your leg before swimming with sharks or to hit on one of the indigenous people because nobody in America will hook up with you, just remember: death and STDs stick with you for a while. That being said, have a great break!

(Contributions from editors and guest writer Bacchus)