I don't know who is responsible for assigning the dates of Fall Break, but it always seems exactly wrong. I have never once been able to study for midterms on this alleged "Reading Day" because all my midterms always happen beforehand, producing for the past five semesters something I lovingly call Worst Week Ever. This distribution, however, means that I can only regard the break (all ... day of it) as a desperate chance to ward off illness with sleep.
I admire those who can use the reading break for other things. I know some guys, for example, who are rambunctiously leaping up to Montreal for the weekend. I am envious. They will have a superb time. But if I go, I will certainly have bronchitis, especially given that I've developed bronchitis every fall since I was eight.
My health doesn't seem to be keeping itself intact thus far, though, so I'm not particularly hopeful about my chances. For example: I was actually in the middle of taking a midterm when my stomach started to produce the most astonishing collection of thumps, bumps and gurgles. It could easily be heard five rows away -- I know because people kept looking up from their blue books to stare at me in frank bewilderment. I was embarrassed, but fortunately my symptoms stayed limited to noises and didn't produce any attendant physical problems.
My parents attribute this to stress. I would go to Student Health, except that they would certainly tell me I was both pregnant and heavily addicted to "pills/lines," the same thing they tell everyone. I'm willing to accept the diagnosis of stress, though; that particular disease is certainly showing its many symptoms so far. A guy who was obviously still drunk in one midterm I took turned his test in after maybe six minutes and just wobbled out of the room, a decision which I can only imagine he regretted later on. I know that things are bad when one friend of mine signed up to go to Down Under not once but twice in a single weekend -- if that isn't a cry for help, I don't know what is.
This season of the year has its own delights, though. Maybe most recent was the fireworks extravaganza over the Rotunda, which was obviously great. I wandered around the Lawn for some time beforehand, and it was incredibly exciting to see the Lawn slowly filling up with community folks, young kids and moms on blankets, and then to see the walls of students come staggering up out of the shadows and to see everyone slowly compress themselves down into the center of the Lawn in increasingly sweaty and breathless anticipation of the coming explosions. I was standing near a bunch of guys who were frantically smoking pipe tobacco, which added an unexpected element to the autumnal scene.
And then once everything went boom and the band struck up and the Lawn got burnt bright by the successive concussions, it was just ridiculous. I was staring up at the sky like an unusually tall 6-year-old, entirely unaware of the fact that most of my friends were laughing hysterically at my slack-jawed wonder.
Of course, not even the fireworks thing escaped from the general oddness of the past days. For example, did no one who planned it see "V for Vendetta?" I don't know if I was the only one who saw that movie, but when the grand finale started blazing over the Rotunda and the band swung into the "1812 Overture," I got a little nervous. After all, if the combination of fireworks and that piece of music was good enough to do in Old Bailey and Parliament, why not the Rotunda?
Of course, as many have said when I've mentioned this before, it's been 111 years since the Rotunda burned down the last time. Maybe it's time for another go 'round.
Maybe we all need a similar change, my friends. I suppose that, regardless of whether we wander home or stay here or impulsively invade Canada over this weekend, at least it will be a change from the everyday. And God knows we all need that.
By the time you read this, "Lost" will have come back on the air. I am so excited I could puke. Actually, wait a second ...
Connor's column runs bi-weekly on Thursdays. He can be reached at sullivan@cavalierdaily.com.
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