BY JEREMY BLACHMAN
FROM TALKING TO SOME OF MY friends at other law schools, it seems like this week is a popular one for Spring Break. And yet we’re stuck in Cambridge, with one more week to wait before we can fly down to Florida, spend a week on a beach in Mexico, snorkel in the blue waters of – I have no idea where people snorkel, sorry – go home and see some family and friends, or catch up on Corporations reading (fun!). Nevertheless, there are advantages to having to wait two more weeks for spring break – first, it will actually be spring (and so the ground – outside chance – might not be covered in snow); and second, it will mean fewer weeks after break until the year is over and we can enjoy our summers… working for law firms… yeah, that doesn’t sound quite right. But for people who just can’t wait, I’ve come up with a few ideas on how to celebrate Spring Break early, while we’re still at school:
1. Wardrobe. Just because you’re not surfing off the San Diego coast doesn’t mean you can’t show up in Tax class dressed like you are. Bathing suits, tank tops, bikinis, flip-flops. So what if there’s ice on the ground and a chill in the air? It’s Spring Break in Cambridge!
2. Atmosphere. Print out your case briefs on fancy paper with a festive Spring Break border of streamers and balloons; beads and beer cans; police officers and handcuffs. Edit your journal articles to include the words “dude,” “beach party,” “sneak across the border in a rental car,” and “doing lines of coke in the back of an abandoned warehouse in Miami-Dade County with the guys who ran the 2000 election recount.” I don’t know where that sentence came from. I don’t mean to insinuate the people who counted hanging chads were doing coke, or that they are in fact still doing coke, with law students, over Spring Break, in the back of abandoned warehouses. But I have 700 words to fill, and, as you can see, inspiration is not coming easy this week, so you’ll have to bear with me.
3. Schedule. Class at 10? Ten at night perhaps. Convince your professors to move your 8:30 AM classes to midnight, and replace the fluorescent classroom lights with a disco ball, the blackboard with black-light, and the Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act with the latest trashy romance novel. And your midterm writing exercise with a beach party.
4. Relaxation. Convert the ice rink to a beach. Right now Jarvis Field is a puddle of mud. How about we turn that mud into sand… and enjoy sunbathing with a good book… written by Glannon… under the warm sun… provided by the halogen lamps they don’t allow in the dorms. Maybe Dean Kagan can use some of the “student happiness fund” to turn the free coffee and tea into free margaritas and daiquiris. Stick paper umbrellas in your Nantucket Nectars. Eat Hark food and feel like you’re in Mexico, experiencing the ravages of explosive diarrhea.
5. Recreation. Instead of swimming with the sharks in Ecuador (again, I’m not sure if people really swim with sharks, and if they do swim with sharks, I’m not sure if they do that in Ecuador), swim with the gunners in Hemenway. Instead of volleyball on the sand, try Ultimate Frisbee on the common. Instead of tennis at the resort, try throwing your casebooks into a big bonfire and using it to roast marshmallows. I know that’s not really a sport. But it might be fun anyway.
6. Economics. “Your suggestions are great,” the easily amused portion of you are thinking, “but Spring Break is pretty expensive, and staying in Cambridge won’t feel like Spring Break since I won’t be spending hundreds of dollars on airfare, hotel rooms, and strip clubs.” “Ah, but here at school,” I respond, “you’re wasting money just as prodigiously.” On classes, which, by my rudimentary calculations, cost 159,000 Italian lire per hour.
So it may be a week until Spring Break. But why wait?
Jeremy Blachman’s column appears weekly. He also posts commentary here.