2008 Woodie Awards
Eating instant noodles in rainy Tacoma
Beth Murdock
Issue date: 3/23/07 Section: Opinion
First of all, let me just say that I hope everyone had a terrific Spring Break; I mean this from the bottom of my heart. The fact that my week was lousy certainly doesn't justify my harboring any resentment towards my fellow students. Just because they were fortunate enough to jet set off to Europe, hit the slopes, go camping, or visit their hometowns while I spent seven days on campus all alone doesn't give me license to project any kind of bitterness. In fact, there is no reason whatsoever that the image of any of my classmates sipping mai tais silhouetted against a Caribbean sunset while I sat in my dorm room eating ramen and watching Donnie Darko should cause me to feel anything but perfect happiness for them.
As a demonstration of my benevolence and commendable lack of hard feelings, I will give a personal account of all the delights of Spring Break in Tacoma for anyone who missed out.
Most days the weather was unremarkable-wet, but not especially cold. Friday, however, was gloriously bright and warm. Campus was more or less vacant, with the exception of some staff members and a terrifying invasion of high school debate teams on the second Friday and both of the Saturdays. The fitness center was closed all week. The SUB limited its hours of operation, as well as the variety of food it offered, so I subsisted mainly on apples, chocolate and instant noodles. (This is not a diet I would recommend that anyone follow for any extended period as it left me feeling weak, unsatisfied and curiously starchy.)
Although the library was open on the weekdays, I only utilized it to rent movies. (I watched 17 in all, my favorites of these being Proof, Half Nelson and All that Jazz.) I had intended, of course, to use my break time to get ahead on schoolwork, but as it turns out, I'm just not that motivated. I didn't complete a single assignment. In fact, I barely met the deadline for this article.
Despite the fact that I technically had plenty of work that could've occupied me, I found the daily challenge of filling up all my free time to be the most trying aspect of spending Spring Break on campus. Certainly, time passes whether you fill it or not, but I find it much more satisfying and less depressing if it passes while I'm doing something worthwhile. I clung to my sanity by finding some reason to go off campus every day and then making each excursion take as long as possible. I would only buy enough food for one or two days so that I'd have to go back to the grocery store. I walked to the bank instead of taking the bus. I even printed out a guest pass for Bally Total Fitness and rode the bus across town to work out instead of just running around the track.
As a demonstration of my benevolence and commendable lack of hard feelings, I will give a personal account of all the delights of Spring Break in Tacoma for anyone who missed out.
Most days the weather was unremarkable-wet, but not especially cold. Friday, however, was gloriously bright and warm. Campus was more or less vacant, with the exception of some staff members and a terrifying invasion of high school debate teams on the second Friday and both of the Saturdays. The fitness center was closed all week. The SUB limited its hours of operation, as well as the variety of food it offered, so I subsisted mainly on apples, chocolate and instant noodles. (This is not a diet I would recommend that anyone follow for any extended period as it left me feeling weak, unsatisfied and curiously starchy.)
Although the library was open on the weekdays, I only utilized it to rent movies. (I watched 17 in all, my favorites of these being Proof, Half Nelson and All that Jazz.) I had intended, of course, to use my break time to get ahead on schoolwork, but as it turns out, I'm just not that motivated. I didn't complete a single assignment. In fact, I barely met the deadline for this article.
Despite the fact that I technically had plenty of work that could've occupied me, I found the daily challenge of filling up all my free time to be the most trying aspect of spending Spring Break on campus. Certainly, time passes whether you fill it or not, but I find it much more satisfying and less depressing if it passes while I'm doing something worthwhile. I clung to my sanity by finding some reason to go off campus every day and then making each excursion take as long as possible. I would only buy enough food for one or two days so that I'd have to go back to the grocery store. I walked to the bank instead of taking the bus. I even printed out a guest pass for Bally Total Fitness and rode the bus across town to work out instead of just running around the track.
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