\HERE IS A SAMPLE OF THE ACTIVITY SCHEDULE IN JAMAICA!"" was written near the top of the page slightly below the slogan, ""The Wisconsin Union Travel Center. Your on-campus guide to work, study and travel abroad.""
I read down the page and tried not to laugh at the irony. As far as I could tell the Travel Center brochure for ""University Sponsored Trips"" for ""Spring Break 2002"" didn't offer much in the means of ""work,"" ""study"" or even true ""travel abroad.""
Rather, it advertised seven days of ""All Day Drink Specials,"" ""FREE Rum,"" ""Free Red Stripe Beer"" and ""All You Can Drink Parties."" Actually, to highlight a few quotes from the brochure, this would be seven ""safe, reliable and reputable"" days of ""University Sponsored"" ""FREE Rum"" and ""All You Can Drink Parties.""
I'd gotten the brochure from a girl at Memorial Union, who'd offered it to me as I passed her table in the main corridor. She seemed excited by my interest in Jamaica, but I like to think she knew I didn't really plan on going anywhere this spring break that specializes in beaches, booze and boobs. Unfortunately, I doubt she could tell.
My best friend from high school is planning his third straight trip to South Padre Island this spring, and most of the time I don't think he comes off as that much different than me at all.
It's not until we meet up in June, and he shows me his photos of topless girls and wet T-shirt contests, or he tells me stories about passing out in stairwells or hooking up for the night with girls whose names he never quite caught, that I wonder about all the ways we differ.
I don't understand what makes him want to go on these trips, and I don't know how he can think back upon them afterwards and not hate himself. But, I don't really think he considers these things at all.
Instead, he just up and goes, because that's what you're supposed to do in college, and, well maybe, he just might think these trips are fun. Or perhaps, like I've heard it said, he considers spring break a rite of passage, and I'd like to know what it's a passage to.
If a week of crazy tropical drunkenness really is some sort American cultural rite, I'm happy the Wisconsin Union offers travel packages to help students attain whatever it is they're after. I'm even happier, though, that I don't need a $600 package deal to get what I'm after, whatever that might be.
Until I saw the girl in the Union, I hadn't really given any thought as to how I'd like to spend spring break, or how I need to spend spring break.
Last year I took the train to Toronto with two friends, and that was the best thing I could have done, while a year earlier I spent the break at home reading books and visiting family. The reading was as rewarding and refreshing as Toronto, and maybe as good for my soul as the alternative break I took to North Carolina my freshman year had been.
But, now I'm thinking about this spring break, and what I might need, and I'm not exactly sure. I just wonder if maybe I shouldn't have thrown out my Travel Center brochures.
andrewmiller@students.wisc.edu
