Summer is upon us, my friends. Mother Nature might be menopausal, skipping right over spring and heading straight for the heat wave, but we forgive her, gratefully accepting the opportunity to wear brands other than North Face and the pleasant change in scenery.
Usually, though, spring gives us a little time to adjust - a few rainy days, a few undecided days. Without it, summer hits us like a ton of bricks. Teachers start handing out "final assignments" that happen to be due within the next week, CollegeBoxes starts asking for our money, and annoying relatives rear their ugly faces to find out if we've got any internships lined up. I don't know about you, but I was surprised by how soon we've all began hurdling down the home stretch. With the arrival of our season of freedom comes a slew of discomforts and phobias - all of which I'm going to have to cover now, since the Daily doesn't exactly grace your front porches throughout those precious three months.
Undoubtedly, if you live anywhere remotely close to a coastline, the first thing you're gonna wanna do when you get home is find the nearest beach and get as naked as possible. Great plan! One problem - you've been locked indoors for the last eight months, pacing back and forth in your 10-by-10-foot cell, slaving over problem sets and papers, and enjoying all the splendors that Carmichael and Dewick have to offer. So basically, you're white as a ghost (potentially transparent!) and there are probably a few extra pounds of you hangin' around that weren't there when your parents sat you on the plane or train or bus to leave.
I have friends who religiously visit tanning booths, and I have become totally addicted to exercise, but it doesn't change the fact that we have to do something proactive in order to avoid becoming college-student sized, non-green versions of the characters from one of Robin Williams' better movies, Flubber (1997). You can rest assured knowing that the people at the beach have been at the beach all year, those non-academic scum.
Before I go on, I should probably say that I'm a Floridian, so this situation more than likely resonates to a higher degree with me or someone from California or any other coastal state than with someone from, say, Kansas or Iowa. In any case, I can see it now: May 9, 2007. A beautiful Florida day. Ninety-five degrees. I am walking down the beach, trying to find a good spot to put all my stuff. Once at the spot, my sister, who is just about the most Puerto Rican non-Puerto Rican Jewish girl you could ever meet, stands next to me, in all her bronze glory. I take off my cover-up to reveal that I am as pasty as Voldemort, the Dark Lord, hidden from the public until now, when I have finally gained enough confidence to reveal myself.
The entire beach erupts in laughter, pointing, spitting hot dog crumbs everywhere. They don't stop laughing. Now they are on the ground, rolling, choking on sand. One man suffocates. Seeing his injured friend, the man next to him tries to call the paramedics, only to realize that they saw me from a distance, and are also momentarily indisposed, laughing uncontrollably. The man, who is the only person no longer laughing, looks at me as the instigator of his friend's death. He grabs his umbrella pole, slowly and tentatively, in his left hand.
Other people who have now stopped laughing only to prevent themselves from choking and dying (the fate that so many others by this time have met) have taken notice of his gesture and follow suit, grabbing their umbrella poles, sand shovels, sharpened shells and other beach paraphernalia that could potentially be used for violence. Fast forward to me, running away, followed by an angry mob of golden brown beachgoers, with, so far, only minor injuries. I can only run for so long, though. I can only run for so long.
So, that's how that could potentially play out. Not so well for me, I suppose.
There's another fear, a much less publicized one, that you might not even realize you have until you've been home for a few weeks. So, we've been here at school, going back and forth from class to class, sports practice, friend's rooms, meals, activities, shopping, you name it. We've gotten pretty used to maintaining a firm schedule, one of which we are the sole crafters. With school out of the equation - what the heck do we do? There's a solitary confinement-type anxiety that resonates the minute you get back to your own room in your hometown, sit down and take that deep breath. Then you're sitting there thinking, "Hokay, so, umm ... now what?" You can only go to the mall with your friends so many times before you realize that you've got three more months of boredom, and that's when you decide to get a job, or a last-minute internship, or whatever else you can manage to piece together at the last moment. We're so pathetic.
There's also, of course, the issue of not seeing your closest friends for three months, and of course, going home isn't so pleasant for everyone, and, of course, the "unknown" that summer brings with its spontaneous adventures and general mischief. I guess this is one of those phobias we aren't so sorry we have to face.
