What is it about vacation that makes us long for the days of childhood? Is it the freedom we experience from school and work? Or is it the sense of fleeting you get when you know it will soon be over? For some it is the freedom and for some it is the fleeting, but moreover it is the feeling we get from being trapped in a cage of scheduling and activity. We plan every minute of our day to ensure we get the most of our time. And when a minute goes by without planning you have to compensate by re-exerting yourself at some other point in the day. You feel as though you must make it up or catch up with your schedule. Vacation is a time when schedules become meaningless and time becomes infinite. Your reality is the moment and your future seems far away.

We all need that feeling once in a while. If we do not get it we can be forced to do rash things like binge drink at a weekend party or OD on pain pills after a hard day of work, all in an effort to reach that feeling. Not to be so grim most of today’s college students get more than their fair share of this feeling. They spend each weekend in a mindless stupor hoping they had done their homework the week before. Then they get vacation and decide to spend the little money they did manage to save on a cruse in Jamaica trying to pick up hot Jamaican women and men. In my mind this is an overabundance of that feeling.

There are also some who do it right. They work hard all semester and on weekends do extra curricular activities including community service and clubs/ organizations. They spend their nights doing papers and discussing mind-expanding topics with their friends. So when that vacation comes there are ready. They are ready to get a healthy dose of that euphoric feeling that comes with the schedule free time. They take it in and enjoy its warm embrace and after a logical amount of time they brush it off and go back to work.

That is the way vacations are supposed to work. Unfortunately most people fall in to one of the other groups. They either over-indulge in the euphoria or under-indulge by working through vacations and not spending enough time on themselves.

I fall into the later group I spend every vacation working and trying to get ahead. I take very little time for myself and spend way too much time on every one else. In the past two years I have taken three stress tests and not passed a single one of them. Normally I would say its ok and I will be fine, but as I have just said there is a point where you need to stop and enjoy a little bit of that euphoric feeling that comes with vacation.

Posted by Daniel Smith at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So spring break is upon us and we are all happy. Most of us are taking some time off to relax and enjoy time without classes. I, however, am working almost every day of spring break. I have scheduled myself for work every day but Easter. This would normally be a hardship, but I am in dire need of money so it is ok with me this week.

Work seems like an archaic term used to describe what people do when they hate their job. Luckily, I have no job that I truly hate. And that’s saying a lot, especially because I have four jobs. I work for ROCK 101 as a street teamer, SNHU Residence life as an RA, SNHU Student Affairs at Copies Plus, and at Monadnock Regional High School as a substitute teacher. I am not too fond of being a substitute teacher, but it is not the worst job in the world. However, I love my other jobs.

I have worked for Copies Plus as an associate for three years now including one summer. It is a fairly easy job. It does not require much creativity or know-how. Most of the skills you need can be learned in a matter of hours. But, the thing I really like about it is that it allows you to be creative and knowledgeable. I have worked there so long that I would have been very tired of it had I not been able to do that.

ROCK 101 has always interested me. I have worked for them for almost a full year now. I started off as an intern and am now on the payroll as a member of the street team. I enjoy working there for two reasons. One, I am constantly updated on a lot of the cool stuff happening around Manchester. Two, I have the chance to be part of a Radio Station that allows me to branch out and do more than just my job description.

My last job is working as an RA. I have been at this for two years now and I have really enjoyed it. I am really glad I got into it when I did because it has opened my eyes to a whole new career path that I had never thought of before. I am now seriously considering going into the student affairs aspect of college.

So basically this is my spring break post. I am currently sitting in my old high school library taking care of a bunch of 11th grade students who are supposed to be working on a project.

Posted by Daniel Smith at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am 20 years, 8 months, 25 days, and 23 hours old. I have experienced a lot in that time and I will continue to experience more. I have seen great things and I have seen terrible things. I have experienced miracles and I have experienced disasters. I have been privy to incredible information and I have been left in the dark. I have done and seen many things in my life, but what has it all been for?

As of late I have found myself observing more. I have been observing my surroundings and the events that run my life. I have found two things evident in everyday life. Everyone lies. I have seen it time and time again, when backed into a corner people resort to lies. They use them as a crutch to find there way out of a situation. The issue with this is that they then have to make up more lies to cover up the first lie and dig themselves even deeper. I have also observed how once these lies are uncovered that they can destroy peoples lives. It can destroy friendships and marriages. It can destroy reputations and credibility. Lies can seep into every aspect of your life and when uncovered destroy everything you have worked so hard to create.

The other thing I have observed is that the way we interact with each other varies so intensely that it is almost impossible to generalize it. For instance, if I say to one of my roommates “hey do you want to go to the store?”, they would say yes or no depending on there own needs and weather or not they actually needed to go to the store. However, if I were to ask almost anyone else it would be a matter of weather they wanted to spend time with me or not. No one can ever predict every relationship a person has and how they interact with him or her.

In pertaining to SNHU, which I always like to do, both of these things can be observed on campus daily. The destruction of relationships due to lies and the impossible generalization of the way we interact with people. We are constantly involved in all of this and yet somehow we make it through. Somehow we come out of it with our heads held high and regretting nothing. Is it an issue of questionable morals or is it an issue of knowing deep down that nothing you do now matters more than how you interact with the outside world. College is a bubble of knowledge, inspiration, and opportunity. What we do within that bubble is up to us.

Posted by Daniel Smith at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)