After every spring break, Quinnipiac students get an exasperating surge of YOLO (“You Only Live Once”). Until recently, there hasn’t really been a phrase to describe this anxious itching sensation you feel in your toes when Mother Nature does a 180 and the sun is shining directly onto your pale legs. You’re prompted to drop everything and reach for a red solo cup. Suddenly, the smell of barbecue smoke is in your hair and your flips-flops have mysteriously appeared from under the bed. You get an unexplainable urge to play Bob Marley out of your window, even if you don’t like Bob Marley. You become a grill master, a Kan Jam champion. You can be anything you want when the sun comes out to tantalize you.
But, there are rules to YOLO-ing. You don’t want to abuse YOLO, because then it completely loses its charm. Remember that thing called class? Work? Your thesis? Doing your homework outside simply doesn’t happen, unless you have the willpower synonymous to a 15 years sober alcoholic. What I can suggest is that you try as hard as you can to convince your professor to hold class on the quad, or by the Law School. This past Thursday I watched from the Arnold Bernhard Library as a professor led a discussion for the full length of a night class, and they didn’t move even as it finally got dark out. He gets extra points if he’s a business professor.
Besides the thought of going to class making you want to throw a tantrum, there’s the inevitable relationship of beautiful weather with alcohol. I’m not sure why college students, myself included, necessitate this relationship. It isn’t as if during the colder weeks we were hibernating drinkers, but we definitely weren’t sitting outside with Irish coffees. So, when you’re done with your cup, your bottle, whatever it may be, dispose of it. Part of the reason why we find it so appealing to drink when the weather is beautiful is because it fulfills the aesthetic satisfaction we get from kicking back on a campus that really is quite beautiful. So keep it that way. The maintenance crew is too nice to be dealing with our party trash.
With that said, whip your YOLO out. But, don’t forget that you have your entire summer to do absolutely nothing, while you do absolutely nothing. It seems too precious to waste on every warm day that will come our way from now until finals week. What will the next youth trend be anyway? I’m thinking PNBT, “Party Now Before Taxes.” That seems to be more appropriate as college students preparing for the real world, but I’m not trying to put a damper just yet on your springtime fun.