There are few people on campus awaiting spring break more eagerly than I am. Only halfway through my midterm minefield, I already have my blinders on, focusing all my extra energy on thinking about 10:05 a.m. on Friday when I’m finished with my last test. Making things worse, it’s getting nice out. While the temperature is still hovering only around 50 degrees in the past few days, it’s nice enough for me to look out the Lau windows and feel especially miserable.
It really is a shame that I, and I imagine most Georgetown students, can’t wait to get off campus next week, because the spring—not chicken finger Thursday, Epicurean happy hour, or proximity to Wisey’s—is the best thing Georgetown has to offer. Though I am certainly not willing to prolong my midterms, nor do I think staying here for the week would be fun, I know that when I look back at my experience here, I’ll be disappointed in myself for wanting to leave a great place at a great time.
I came to Georgetown because, among other reasons, I felt it had the strongest sense of community among its students of any college I saw. And while this community certainly exists in the winter, notably at basketball games, it’s during the latter months of the school year that I feel it most strongly. Every time I walk across Healy lawn on a nice day, when it seems that the whole study body is sprawled out on the grass and reading, listening to music, or enjoying themselves in any way, I know I made the right decision in coming to Georgetown. Everyone is perfectly content, and everything seems easier. Disneyland might have Donald Duck, but Healy lawn in the spring has always seemed to me the happiest place on Earth.
I even made the decision to go abroad in the fall, I enjoy Georgetown in the spring so much. I could miss the leaves falling off the trees, the need to increasingly add jacket layers, and Thanksgiving, but I would be devastated if I missed wearing sunglasses for the first time, my perpetually unfulfilled dream of doing things outside of the Georgetown area, and most of all, Georgetown Day.
Though I concede I was not inspired by any of the options for the spring concert, I can hardly wait for it, nonetheless, as, to me, it always marks the best few weeks of the year. Classes are winding down, the weather is steadily nice, people are constantly on the lawn, Georgetown Day is just weeks away, and other staples of Georgetown spring like Relay for Life, Foxfield, and Rigby Ball ensure that there is something to look forward to every weekend before finals eventually pull everyone out of their seasonally-induced high.
Even if we didn’t have the likes of T-Pain to entertain us, the spring weather is enough to make us appreciate what is always around us. It’s hard to notice just how beautiful Healy is when it’s cold enough to make your eyes water if you keep them open long enough. Similarly, the Potomac never looks as scenic when the wind chill on the Car Barn patio is painful.
When you can open the door to go outside and not brace yourself for the cold about to hit you, or when you take a deep breath without the equally deep lung burn, you’re bound to feel better and enjoy whatever it is you’re doing. Especially during midterms I appreciate how free from stress it is to study on lawn, reading through darkened lenses, concerned more about the length of the walk from the lawn to Midnight Mug for a soda than the length of the essay you’re writing. It’s moments like these, which abound during the spring, that are remembered decades in the future. When I look back at college, I’m sure every day will seem like Georgetown Day.
While I’m still excited for spring break, I’m even more excited for the weeks to come, but of course if I keep putting off studying for my midterms to daydream, I might have many more Georgetown springs to come.
