Dirty breaks

In the midst of spring break, you may have forgotten about the spring part. Sure, we're back to the grind of papers and exams, but winter is officially over. Spring is so much better than winter. The days get longer, the snow melts, we start to remember how sun feels, and love is in the air.

Which takes on a different meaning if you were just in Cancun, or Panama City, or Fort Lauderdale, or any other meat-market-MTV-suntan destination, for that matter. Because spring and love and fun don't work the same way there as they do here, and people will do things that they never would in Medford or Somerville or any "real" place.

These vacation traps apparently exist in some void zone wherein there are no laws, no standards, and no histories. Going there doesn't just mean taking a vacation from being in Boston. It's taking a vacation from being yourself.

Don't imagine that I'm going to bemoan the entire culture of collegiate spring break. Yes, I think most of the students found in these places are loudmouthed tools, but that's not the point. Until we can come up with some standard litmus test that determines whether or not a given 19-year old will stagger around on a Mexican bus with a gigantic beer in his hand, yelling at the bus driver and relying on the crush of people to keep him upright, I guess we have to let everyone go on vacation and hope that things sort themselves out.

And debauchery or no, I can't claim that even the more Dionysian spring breaks are bad. I came back from Cancun two days ago. No, I do not overlook the simple pleasures of seeing a 17-year old girl, drunk on tequila, dance in a cage with a guy four years her senior. I mean, that's fantastic. Why bother going somewhere different unless you're going to see different things there? Makes me wonder why the people who don't go out and see these things (read: older people) want to go to Cancun at all. Ruins of some sort, perhaps. Or duty-free vanilla smuggling.

But while I'm in favor of people going a little crazy and being a little obscene (read: pole-dancing) and maybe drinking in a controlled, responsible environment (read: open bar), I can tell that most vacationers don't think about the image they present to the rest of the world. These tanned, blond-tipped, alcohol-lubricated revelers go beyond being brazen and shameless. They make me embarrassed for them.

I believe in living your own life and not worrying too much about what other people think, but that isn't what these people are up to. I believe in going to new places and experiencing new things, but that isn't it either. These are people who are so hopped up on image -- on the image seen and appreciated by their tiny demographic slice -- that they pursue it to the benefit of nothing else and simply tune out the rest of the world.

Guess what? You're not in some magical world, populated only by those of your background within a year of your own age. These drunken titans in Cancun are surrounded by Mexicans, children, older Americans, grandparents, you name it. You wonder why so many foreigners think Americans are ignorant, obnoxious buffoons? The reason is the drunk kid stumbling by the pool, the guy on the bus who can only yell "ANDALE" at the bus driver, the girl who complains loudly about the heat and the quality of the water while fanning her fine, bikini-clad self. If this is all you see -- or all you notice -- of Americans, you can't help but hate us. I was born here, and it makes me hate us a little bit.

And what about the older people? The adults on their own vacations who see you living it up? Sure, they can forgive -- "I was just like that at his age" -- but it only serves to inflate the image that people have of our generation as a bunch of spoiled, irresponsible slobs. After seeing a broader face of the American student population, I don't respect us much, either. I guess I thought better of us.

Maybe I'm being silly. Maybe kids can just be kids and everyone can forgive them for it because they'll change as they get older. Maybe they're perfectly diligent and respectful during the rest of the year. I'm willing to forgive that. But what if they don't change? I can tell you that kids did not party like this when our parents were in college, and everybody (including high school students) seems to get in on it now. Hell, I did.

I'm making myself out like a Puritan here, which is wrong, but I think there's a balance to strike between having fun and having a place in the real world. Drunken wastrels have no place; a college student who cuts loose once in a while does. Even when you're getting wrecked, there has to be some voice in the back of your head that reminds you who you are and where you're going. There has to be some larger priority.

Forgive the moralizing, but while there isn't anything wrong with having fun, you have to reach a point in time when you decide to come down off of the high of being young and pretty and reckless. This sort of vacation is the highlight of some people's years. What does that say about the rest of the year? Do they not care? Is this really all they want?

I hope that most students at Tufts reach that point by the time they graduate, and I hope that everyone gets there eventually. And hey, when you do? You can pat yourself on the back because I was wrong about you. You turned out fine. But when I look some of these guys in the eye and try to see what exactly is going on in there, I don't see any thought at all. I see them loving it and wanting nothing more. I see them not wanting to change. I see them planning the rest of their lives around public spectacles like these.

Youth is grand. But it doesn't last forever, and when it's over, you'd better have already started down some other track. If you don't care about other people's respect now, I'm not sure when you plan on starting to.