2008 Woodie Awards
April activity keeps students happy, busy and stressed
Seth Gorenstein
Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: Opinion
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Drew's spring awakening reinvigorates campus academics, athletics and activities with the suddenness of seasonal rainstorms. One day in March, you're shuffling through slush and mud to attend an indistinguishable Wednesday morning class, hazy visions of spring break taunting and teasing you like a Cancun commercial on mute. Then bam! It's April, and you're dashing through sun showers mixed with snow to make that 5 p.m. paper deadline, lacrosse game, orchestra rehearsal, guest lecture or what seems like a hundred different variations on "Whoa, what else do I have to do today?"
It seems that every campus club and group emerges from hibernation to offer Drew their "big event" in April. Look at all that happened just last weekend. If you weren't "sightseeing" on the Montreal Trip, cheering Mad Ave on at the International Championship of a Cappella or desecrating the moon walk at Spring Fling, you may have been rooting for Drew baseball at their doubleheader or catching the Saturday night showing of "Juno." And this weekend won't let up the slightest bit-are you going to see "Little Shop of Horrors," get all medieval at Medfest or again desecrate the moon walk at Junior/Senior? Perhaps you'll manage to squeeze in all of the above. Wait, don't you have a 15-pager due Monday? Maybe if you don't think about it, it'll write itself.
April does a funny number on students. Suffice to say, it's been a great month for people-watching. Behold the blank stares on the faces of exhausted students as they charge from class to class, activity to activity. They once had time to slow down, relax, maybe even laugh a little, but now they're organic automatons driven purely by instinctual needs-eat, sleep, don't flunk exam, drink, sleep, eat, hopefully sex, write that 10-pager and so on until mid-May. You better not slow down during April, because the month is not going to wait for you to catch up.
April is unlike any other on the academic calendar-and not just for the planner-bursting amount of activity. First, every professor and their mother demand that ginormous assignment to be due during that one hellish week. Second, though it carries the weight of imminent conclusion as felt in December, April is truly the beginning of the end of one fourth of your college experience. For underclassmen, it's the last month of college before the summer doldrums assume their extended tenure. For seniors, it's the remaining 30 days to enjoy with friends, attend classes in body if not in mind and create whatever memory you want stored in your mental collage of the undergraduate experience before graduation arrives. With April being so crucial to everyone, why does it have to be so chock-full of events?
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