When I was seven years old, my parents thought it would be a great idea to take me to Key West, Florida during spring break. Why they thought this would be a smart move, I’m not sure. Apparently, they had forgotten that spring break is a time when Florida is crawling with hoards of rowdy college students who are eager to take some time off from studying in order to go slightly cray-cray. But you can be certain that my parents remembered soon enough, especially after the first night of our stay in Florida, during which music blasted from the hotel pool area until four in the morning. The next day, when the entire beach was crowded with what seemed like hundreds upon hundreds of college students causing quite the ruckus, my parents remembered even more. All I wanted was to swim the ocean with my floaties without being pummeled by some boisterous lacrosse bros, but unfortunately, that wasn’t quite in the cards.

I placated myself with the notion that one day, when I would be a college student myself, I would have just as fun of a time frolicking around some vacation destination with my own group of friends, terrifying little kids in my own wake. I think that this grand idea came in part from too many viewings of the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movie Passport to Paris, in which the pair gets into many shenanigans during their spring break, including meeting two cute and charming French boys. Extensive montages of riding around Paris on mopeds may or may not have occurred. However, these high expectations of mine didn’t quite align with how I spent my two weeks of break this year.

Expectation: Going on an adventure with my best friends to some exotic location, preferably involving a beach.
Reality: Going on an “adventure” with my best friends to Target because we have nowhere else to go.

Expectation: Spending countless hours soaking up the glorious sunshine and getting super tan in the process.
Reality: Spending countless hours basking in the glow of my laptop screen, hiding under a protective layer of blankets while it continued to snow outside.

Expectation: Not having enough time to do all of my homework because I was too busy having the time of my life.
Reality: Not doing any of my homework because I was too busy catching up on all of the TV shows that I missed from the first half of the semester.

I still enjoyed my time off nonetheless, but suffice to say that the almost-thirteen-year-old Olsen twins circa 1999 had a much more exciting series of spring break hijinks than I. There’s always next year…