Welcome back to the cold weather. Welcome back to Brookings, where alcohol and livestock are everywhere. Embrace your tans, restock your alcohol cabinets, pick up your books, because we are back to school.

Put down the koozies, duck faces and peace signs. Put on your pants, we aren’t in Panama City anymore. The reality of life after spring break hits us hard as we unpack the shorts and begin to embrace our once ugly farmer’s tans.

The Sunday night when we return sets every student into a deep depression. The emails we have ignored for a week now surface on our laptops and D2L takes over our computer with grades that we did not know even existed.

If you didn’t use this break for one big black out “vacation” then you use the classic excuse of “catch up time.” That’s a lie. You slept. You slept so long; you swear you didn’t miss anything. You slept so long, that you began to think that school was cheap. You actually believed our money went toward good food on campus. You slept so long, you now believe you can catch up on all your homework, papers and tests in one night.

Wake up. It is 2014 and your hashtags are quickly becoming reality. Team no sleep is something much more than just a Twitter phrase now my friends.

If you went on a mission trip over spring break, I raise my glass to you. If you went somewhere warm, sunny, and full of sand, I’ll do you a favor and give you a cup of coffee and some Tylenol to help cure that endless hangover. If you survived all of this, I’m impressed. Nothing says, “I live in the fifth drunkest city” better than actually showing up for the class the day after spring break. That is impressive.

From an outsider’s point of view, spring break is just one long Hobo Day. It’s the time of year to procrastinate as long as you can and forget about any schoolwork.

Let’s not forget about the next “holiday” coming up, pub crawl; back-to-back celebratory happenings that require absolutely no driving and lots of bad decisions. It’s only fitting for being one of the drunkest cities in the nation right?

Where would Brookings be if we didn’t have livestock, the jitterbug and drinking? It would be just another boring school. This all comes together to make SDSU one of the special schools that are on nationally recognized lists of awesomeness. So what if they are all about drinking and dressing up like hobos. We could’ve made the list for “Worst colleges to meet men” (No. 8 USD) in the very popular Cosmopolitan magazine. USD should make us Jackrabbits feel pretty darn good about ourselves.

Whether a big drunken spring break, an average pub crawl, or a nice St. Patrick’s day bar hopping evening, Brookings is ready to conquer any adventure.

Embrace the real tans, embrace the well-earned headaches, accept the Internet distractions and have fun. 

 

Brianna Arity is majoring in early childhood education. She can be reached at [email protected].