So, does everybody remember that "Simpsons" where Homer stops sleeping, and gets sent off to the beach for a little R&R? Ya know, the one when he discovers Spring Break. Yeah!!!

I suppose that, if one were to reflect on it at length, there’s probably some sort of mythology built up around college students and Spring Break. There’s "The Road Trip," the "Beach Vacation," et cetera. A mythological Spring Break would be about a bunch of college kids from one school going to some warm place in order to meet bunches of kids from other schools. And then getting drunk and hooking up with one or several of them. There may also be a talking dog.

But somehow, by not being a big fraternity-dominated state university, Pomona seems like it might be out of the loop. So, what’s it all about? Beer, beach, bikinis and brawn? Hmm...

Well, Pomona houses a couple different schools of thought vis-à-vis the spring break question. For some folks, it’s all or nothing: the trip, the friends, the excess. As the end of this week approaches, more and more of you will pile into a car and head out on the open road. In search of fun and, more importantly, the sorts of college memories everybody knows college is "really about." (Read: "College is supposed to be the best time of our lives and gosh darnit, college is going to be the best time of my life. On to San Diego!")

From the buzz, I’d venture to guess that the favorite destinations for Pomona kids so inclined are the Bay area, J-tree, (a.k.a. Joshua Tree), and all points west. Some people go to Vegas, but that’s really more of a Thursday night escapade.

There’s also the "going to" philosophy of spring breaking. Got a friend from Study Abroad? Well, Spring Break is the perfect time to take that plane out to see them! Parents or grandparents missin’ ya? Bet they’ll get you a ticket. Siblings in Frisco? They probably won’t buy you a ticket, but they’ll house and feed you. Good deal.

Hell, know anybody anywhere? Go stay with ‘em! It’s gotta be better that Claremont.

Which brings me to les miserables who stay on campus. Who? Why!?!

Well, people stay for various reasons. Some people don’t have any money. Some people are too lazy to plan anything. Some people have illnesses.

And then there are those who stay to do work....sadly, the vast majority of the Spring-Break-on-campus posse.

The "I’ll do work" delusion can affect anyone, of any year, but its chief targets are the seniors. Yup, it’s getting near thesis time, and what better way to get some good, quality, work done than when campus life spirals down to nil? You might even get a full draft done. (hehehe) (tee-hee) (Bwaa-ha-ha-ha, I’m Wario!!)

Nice idea, right? Sacrifice for the cause? One last round of academic seriousness before college sets you free to fly off to other types of demands and stresses?

Except, well, somehow this doesn’t really work. I’m not denying that there are, indeed that there must be, a few diligent folks out there who could make "five days with no obligations" translate into "countless hours of writing and reading." But these probably aren’t the kids being forced to stick around campus to make up for lost time in the first place. For those of us, yes, us, who try to stay in the dorms and do all that reading and writing we haven’t been doing for the first half of the semester (especially the last few week’s worth since, shit...Spring Break is coming up), distractibility is obviously a more serious vice.

Imagine it...a whole day. What would you do with a whole day? It’s hard, from this side of the break barrier to imagine such a thing. If it’s not class, it’s meetings, it’s rehearsal, it’s meals, it’s going to the gym. Most of us can’t even remember the last time we had a whole day with no obligations. I sure can’t. Spring Break gets rid of all of these complicating factors.

HA!

If you set aside Spring Break to do work, you are obviously already plagued by unrealistic visions of (academic) grandeur. The chances that you are actually going to do work are slim to none, but because you’ve turned down the beach to stay at school, you’re somehow obligated to at least pretend to do work . This might mean watching movies with your books or computer on your lap. Or, it might mean the deadly "havin’ a beer or two" with your reading.

Whatever your particular method of self-delusion, you are not going to spend that week of non-work time wisely. No matter what, if you’re planning on staying here for break, you’ll soon watch one "whole day at the library" after another turn into "a whole day in front of the TV!" The fun efficiency quotient will be woefully low. As will the work efficiency quotient. Fun time and work time will blur together into what those of us who have been through it can only describe as a kind of laziness limbo.

Spring Break on campus is not not fun–it’s about as fun as sleeping a lot, eating junk food and watching a whole lot of movies ever can be. But its no Beach vacation!

So if you honestly thought at any point that you’d do work, you might as well forget about it now and head off to the beach for a few days. (If you’re really desperate you can always come back rested and then glue yourself to your desk chair.)

By the way, is there a West Coast equivalent to Fort Lauderdale?