musing #1 - spring break/what college still does for me

This weekend marks the the end of my alma matter's spring break. [caveat: I've never been a big spring breaker. My only college trip was an 18-hour drive to Pensacola last year with my dad—and I wouldn't have had it any other way.] Anyhow, I'm a working girl now, but spring break still affected me in a few ways this week, as a recent graduate:

1.) I'm about to get a heaping dose of envy. My friends will be coming home within the next few days, sunkissed, or, at the very least, gloating about some random bar/street fair/specific alcoholic beverage prepared perfectly for them by some excessively attractive bartender.

2.) Because I've just started work, spring break is an irksome reminder of the fact that until I've accrued my 6.67 hours of vacation per month, and until I reach that elusive six-month mark (Sept. 1, baby) after which I can actually take any of that vacation, I'll be spending most of this summer indoors. Bummer.

3.) I'm going to have to deal with thousands (okay, hundreds) of new Facebook status updates like the one I just read, care of a girl I went to high school with: "We drank all of the tequila in Acapulco. No really, it's all gone, and I bungee jumped over the ocean. Mexico es muy bueno!" She's jumping in a swimsuit on the beach in her new profile photo.

However.

Despite all of this bitching, the most notable thing about spring break, for me, this year, was this: It got me out of work an hour early.

My boss asked me to check out some books at KU's library, and I was happy to oblige. But as I padded up the damp marble steps of Watson Library last Sunday, I realized I could see absolutely no one else on campus. I walked to the door, and sure enough, because of spring break, the library was closed, and would have shortened hours that entire week.

I presented my situation to my boss the next morning, to which he replied:

"Well why don't you just take off an hour early today and go get them?"

[Insert a moment of inside-the-head tap dancing and the restraint of a smile]

"Sure," I replied.

I may not get a week-long or summer-long break anytime soon, but at least this year, spring break still nabbed me an hour of freedom. And in celebration, I might just treat myself to an umbrella-adorned drink tonight.