It was back to reality as of the Monday after Spring Break. Back to the classroom. Your short-lived dive into hibernation or a cut-loose seven day road trip came to and end.

Either way, everyone needs to wake up from the little seventh-inning stretch our little week off represents. There is a lot of game still to be played before the semester is over. For most students, the toughest push is at hand.

Spring Beak? What a tease! Our little glimpse of a vacation is more like dreaming of winning the lottery and waking up before you can cash the check. It would be beneficial if Spring Break actually allowed us to relax. But that is impossible. Spring break should be a form of half-time break like most sports games. You don’t see the Sacramento Kings playing three quarters then go to the locker rooms to regroup.

Students are supposed to turn on their brains and pick up where they left off before break. Turning on a student’s brain is like a dial up internet service–painfully slow and you usually give up halfway through the process.

For some it’s hard enough to maintain information the next day–let alone an entire week. The wild-drunken frenzy called “fun” doesn’t help either. The study room in Draper Hall was filled with students the first night back from break. The scene was two small groups attempting to cram for exams the next day. I was there. For my group, the mood resembled nothing but frustration. We needed Plan B. What is Plan B? Simple. No exams after spring break!

So much for fun. And as for the permanent vacation called summer? Forget about it. It’s a figment of your imagination. You have to suck it up for another four grueling weeks. Unfortunately, not everyone will make it to the finish line. The week after Spring Break, with its crushing midterm schedule, is Hell Week #2.

Remember Hell Week #1? It’s the week when some how, some way all your midterms end up on the same time. Spring Break makes it harder to survive Round 2.

This is the critical period for courses offering two exams and a final. Grades weighed by only three or four exams fluctuate greatly. One miss and you’re in trouble. It’s hard to stay motivated, even try after you get two strikes against you going into the final.

Spring break is a temptress. It calls for a reckless abandonment. Discipline, or what’s left of it, goes out the window as you and six other suckers go flying down the highway to San Diego. It is a pitfall that most students are going to fall into. If you just learned this lesson, don’t make the same mistake next year. But why should students be deprived of a week of relaxation? There is a compromise here. Move our Spring Break earlier in the calendar.

Students at the University of Alabama are feeling the same way. Tiffany Summerville, The Crimson White, says, “Some students say the late spring break has negatively affected their plans, since most of the nation’s colleges and universities have already had their spring breaks. “I think it’s kind of dumb, because you go on break, and then you only have three weeks when you come back,” said Kristin Gomez, a freshman psychology major from Texas.

Professors don’t plan our trips to San Diego, but they know we want to relax, not study. So why do they schedule exams after spring break? Because they are mean.

For all us three-year veterans and five-year hopefuls, we have realized that Spring Break is merely another “dead week” in disguise. Dead week consists of nonstop cramming in preparation for exams. Professors are not supposed to give homework or exams during dead week, but they do. The same should apply to week after Spring Break.

For all you freshmen that just got screwed over–welcome to the club.

It probably set in Sunday night when you came back down to the real world. You know, that world you left behind. Now after hardly any sleep for a week, you must hit the ground running. Yet, you’re bound to fall face first into the pavement on your way to a World Civilizations exam.

The summer’s coming. You feel the heat, yet? Because it’s nothing but fastballs from here on out. Those so-called monsters we call professors are warming up those finals in the bullpen. Spring break was the last curve ball. I just hope you weren’t swinging in the dirt this week bombing another exam.

It’s time to get serious.

All that non stop fun leaves you all burnt out with, to top it off, another D+ to put on the refrigerator for Mom and Dad. Forget about the summer.

Forget about fun. At least for the next three weeks.

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