Spring break! Whooo! Sparty on! I've totally got mouth herpes! This week, a good number of us will be traveling for yet another spring break. And, like the break before and the break before that, we hope three of the above exclamations will be said, while one, we hope, will be avoided. Use your best discretion to single out the unfavorable one. Hint: No one likes mouth herpes.
Now, The State News has always tried its hardest not to be your overbearing mother. In fact, "The State News: Not your overbearing mother" was our motto from 1965 to 1981. But when spring break begins in earnest today, it's our duty to remind students to have fun this week, but not to the extent that you find yourself - or your friends - in danger.
The draw of tropical locales and boat drinks by the pool is fully understandable. In fact, it's desirable to anyone who can look out the window and see, well, what Michigan looks like in early March. But by flying yourself to Cancún, Acapulco, Panama City or Negril, it doesn't put you in a binding contract to set personal bests in shots consumed or beers bonged while wearing a bathing suit.
The grimy fact of spring break is that a lot of students come back with a horror story heavy enough to overshadow the good time certainly in store. It's ugly, but it happens. Plenty of students from all over the country come back from a week in paradise as the victims of muggings, alcohol poisoning, assaults and sexually transmitted diseases.
If you contract the clap this week and decide that it's optimistic to call your clap "March Madness," that's good for a laugh. But when the NCAA Tournament is over, it's back to regular ol' gonorrhea. Moral of the story, flawed judgment while you're traveling abroad or in the United States can carry some serious consequences.
When you head to the cantina, use logic. Go in a group, watch who's preparing and serving your drink, know your limits and designate someone to maintain a sense of responsibility. If it's the case where you're driving to the bar, use a designated driver. When the comparative literature major from Ithaca decides she wants to take your 25-minute "relationship" to the next level in her hotel room, safe sex is your friend.
Alcohol poisoning and ralphing off your balcony is neither classy nor sexy. A tattoo proclaiming your love for Corona Extra is a bad idea. Especially on your forehead, and it puts the kibosh on your post-graduate job prospects pretty quickly.
To anyone who has been to a party, the chemistry and biology of spring break is pretty apparent. Take the late-teens to early-20s crowd, let the booze flow like Niagara, put on Kanye West and let the mathematics of the environment take over. People will be hammered this week, people will hook up this week, and people certainly will be put into dangerous situations.
Room for human error will be very broad this week, so use the sound judgment that has been instilled in you and learn from your partying mistakes. No one wants to stay in East Lansing this week, but then again, the person who comes back from Mexico with mouth herpes definitely will not have the last laugh.
