This Sunday is Easter and like a good Christian, I know the true meaning of Easter: Spring has sprung! I can comfortably say that, aside from Christmas, my birthday, the first football game, Thanksgiving and Washington’s birthday, the beginning of spring is definitely my favorite time of the entire year. It is a time when bird eggs are hatching, flowers are being planted and the GEO is staging their annual walkout, thus canceling several classes. It doesn’t get any better!
- Adam Burns
Living in Ann Arbor has enhanced my love for spring. All you out-of-state students are probably asking yourselves, “How will I know when spring has begun? Will I walk outside one morning to see everything in full bloom?” As someone who has lived in Michigan for his entire life, I can assure all you out-of-staters that it will absolutely not happen in that way.
Here in Michigan, we can tell it’s spring when the snow accumulations are replaced by mud accumulations. Apparently, water gets tired of changing its state during a typical spring day, in which the high temperature will be 70 degrees and the low will be around 20. Instead of putting up with these 50-degree temperature swings and constantly having to decide whether it should be a pile of snow or a puddle, the water is content to mix with any available ounce of dirt throughout Ann Arbor and create a university-wide Mud Bowl, but without the benefit of watching girls tackle each other. You know the mud situation is totally out of hand when your history professor says that the Somme — a battlefield in World War I that was so muddy that soldiers drowned in it — was “pretty similar to how it is outside today.”
We’ve been having a little fun at the expense of spring, and I don’t want anyone to be confused. I do really enjoy the beginning of this season. Like I said, it’s at least my sixth favorite time of year. Not only does spring offer us the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, the beginning of the baseball season and the beginning of the end of school, it gives us the most important beginning of the entire year: the beginning of girls wearing skirts. I could fail an exam and stub my toe on the way out of the classroom, but if I saw a girl wearing a skirt out in the hallway, my toe would feel just fine to me. Especially if that girl in the skirt happened to be my girlfriend, Grace — who I must add looks better in a skirt than any girl on this entire campus. But for reasons beyond my control, Grace does not always want to wear a skirt, so when spring rolls around, I often have to go looking for them.
The best place to look at people on campus is, of course, the Diag. No place comes more alive in the springtime than the Diag (except I guess for Dominick’s, which I keep hearing is the place to be). While the protestors, religious fanatics and squirrels remain on the Diag in full force, they are joined by people relaxing between classes, friends shaking hands saying “How do you do?” and sorority girls trying their best to look more important than everyone. But hey, at least they are all rocking matching skirts!
When the mercury creeps up past 70 degrees for the first time this year, you can bet that there will be people crammed on the Diag attempting to tan. The hottest place to do this is at the small, rectangular piece of grass that sits between the giant M and the flagpole. Only the coolest of the cool here at Michigan are allowed to sit in this space. As you might guess, I am allowed nowhere near this spot. The few times that I have managed to breach the border, the popular kids instantly kicked me out after I failed to prove any Greek affiliation, which apparently is a requirement to sit there. As a result, I am forced to retreat to the shade of the trees that cover the serfdoms of the Diag. There, I can dodge frisbees or search for someone to fill the void left by Falun Dafa guy, whose absence on campus this year has been a tremendous burden for the entire community to bear. Of course, the best and most probably option is that I will be sitting in mud.
So come Sunday, in addition to saying “thank you” to Jesus, we will be saying farewell to tanning booths, winter jackets, GSI-led classes, girls wearing long pants and clean grass. I hope that everyone is as ready to have fun in the sun as I am. Just be sure to get outside before it starts snowing again.
Adam has prepared for spring by purchasing new sunglasses so Grace won’t catch him staring at other girls. He can be reached at burnsaj@umich.edu.