The Spirit of Spring

By Emma McAnaw

You’ve convinced everyone that you have the tolerance of a fifth-year frat star. You pride yourself in the fact that you can toss back tequila shots like they’re made of water. But can you can do that all day? Probably not, but during this time of formals, basketball games, and day-drinks, you’re going to try our damndest.

As soon as Syracuse students are exposed to sunlight, we throw on shorts and start blasting music as if it’s not 40 degrees out, but 70. Convincing yourself that your professor won’t notice that you reek of beer if you indulge in day drinking before class is easy when we go to a school where the sight of sunlight is more rare to us than to a naked mole rat. Who cares that finals are mere weeks away? Avicii is blasting from every frat house and it's time to rage, damn it.

The same goes for the upcoming formals. There’s nothing more intimidating than your date demanding that you start drinking at three in the afternoon (What? Should I still plan on surviving that night?). The key here is to pace yourself, since you’ll probably be forced to be in public for at least seven hours. I haven’t gone to the aforementioned formal yet, so I might be eating my words. Or, with my luck, be on my death bed by the time this is published. However, rumor has it that in order not to be “that asshole” stashed into a corner for being to drunk, one must spread out his or her drinks. This doesn’t mean pound five Captain Morgan shots in a row followed by fisting as much food as you possibly can. Any student past freshman year should know by now that that only results in bad breath, not sobriety. I’m not suggesting you tell your date that you can’t start drinking until later in the night, because that makes you the awkward fuck whose still sober while everyone else is already drunk. Just try not to be the one dancing on the tables by 5pm, because I promise you that you will find yourself on YouTube the next day.

The basketball games are an even better excuse to drink at inappropriate hours. However, since this is in broad daylight and not leading to an event later in the night, it’s all more noticeable when you’re blackout among people calmly sitting in front of the television. Your inevitable commentary that makes zero sense will only be seen as obnoxious and irritable. Don’t let your usually wasted friend look like the responsible one; they will never let you forget it. At least wait until the game is over, when you can move your drinking outside. That way you’ll have an easier time making an (ungraceful) exit upon getting too drunk.

That is the true spirit of spring (according to Syracuse).

Tweet us your drinking plans for the rest of the semester, @jerkmagazine.