spring break is for recharging

It’s spring break, and I’m in a cafe in New Orleans, enjoying the high-70’s-low-80’s weather. I’ve been sitting here for the past 5 hours- so far, I’ve submitted an application to an award (cross your fingers for me), sent out some emails, perused reddit, and watched 3 different segway tour groups roll by at a whopping two hours per hour.

(seriously, why do people go on segway tours? I’m a lazy person and I love the idea of not having to put effort into movement, but segways seem like all of the worst parts of standing and all of the worst parts of biking put into a goofy looking lawnmower contraption. use your legs, people!)

I wrote a blog last year about how spring break was a time for me to get away and forget about the troubles of college. The thing is, that was junior fall, a stressful semester, and now I’m a second semester senior.

I’ll be honest, a little part of me spent seven semesters looking forward to senior spring. I had goals- get eight hours of sleep every night! Go out and explore Baltimore! Leave the library before midnight! Finally curb my coffee addiction!

HAHAHAHAHAHA no.

Welp.

Even if you have less responsibilities, senior spring is still a semester at Hopkins, and it’s not just as easy as sitting back and adventuring for three months before you walk across a stage and shake Ronny D’s hand. I thought I would arrive at February 2016 and not have to care about anything except passing and hanging out with my friends.

Frankly, everyone lied. I’ve still had to stay at the library later than I’d like. I still have to put a ton of effort into assignments and write essays and make code work and – ugh – I’ve still been consuming my normal amount of coffee. I still dream of sitting on my couch and marathoning The West Wing (I’ve recently got into it… i know it’s old… whatever) and still can’t do it.

Turns out, senior spring isn’t about apathy, it’s about knowing to care about the right things.

Take my friend Rosie, for example.

Rosie and I are in Intermediate Programming, a notoriously difficult but still lower-level programming class that is mostly taken by freshmen and sophomores. Now that I’m a senior, I’ve found that I raise my hand fifteen times as often as most of the other people in my class- (hopefully) not because I understand the concepts less, but really because I don’t care about being “that guy” anymore.

How does Rosie fit into this? Well, check out this meme that she posted on Piazza:

Pictured here: Rosie being a badass and our professor not hating it

Jokes aside, I’ve spent a lot of spring break just chillin and recharging, gearing up for the last two months of my undergraduate experience (!!!!). I’ve explored New Orleans and the French Quarter, I’ve had a LOT of crawfish,