Monday, April 23, 2012

Spring Fever

by Marie Laursen Canter
The revamped Dolphin’s first theme is “Spring Fever”, a topic we, the editors, chose on a sunny day a couple weeks ago. It was one of those abnormal March afternoons where the sun blazed and the only wind was a ticklish breeze that kept tossing bits of my hair in my face. As I was walking home, I became what I like to call sun-drunk: the giddy and unreasonably sappy state of mind where everything is in sync and accompanied by a soundtrack. On this day, it seemed like every tree was blossoming, every duck in the University Park was quacking joyously, and every passing car happily stopped to let me cross the street. With a bounce in my step and Hall and Oates’ “You Make My Dreams” on my mind, I made my way home, my head teeming with ideas and plans for the spring.
Now, as I’m writing this, I have a spring-hangover: it’s raining, cold, gray, and no one is humming a wonderful musical number. The “breeze” picked up and shot right through my jacket when I ventured outside and the only thing blossoming is the procrastination zit on my face as I realized how much homework I managed to put off over the Easter Break (and how many cakes I still managed to eat). But then, that’s spring fever: one minute you’re running hot and the next your teeth are chattering. The weather forecast looks like a children’s sketch of a mountain range: the temperature shoots up to a measly 8 degrees and then plummets down to the minus ranges. My heater is unhappy to cooperate with this mere mortal ginger and has decided to hibernate for the season (or until temperatures rise again, in which case it will be unnecessary). With the stacks of textbooks still needing to be read surrounding me, I’ve decided to go on the offensive. To combat this chilly atmosphere, I’ve armed myself with a pot of coffee and endless amounts of banana cake with shredded coconut and chocolate pieces: nothing can stop me now.
And that’s exactly what we hope to accomplish with the Dolphin. With just a couple weeks of school remaining and final exam monsters rising behind the homework horizon, it’s sometimes difficult to see the end of this final stretch. We at the Dolphin find it is essential for our survival (and success?) to have small distractions. Bake a cake, take a sun-drunk walk through the park (remember to have a peppy song ready), or read a couple submissions of the Dolphin! We’re here to give you a little break from your intense studying and achy writing fingers. Scroll through the submissions and give yourself a well-deserved break once in a while. We won’t distract you completely (everything is still written in English, after all) but we might give you some ideas as to what you can spend your eventual summer freedom on. We have movie reviews and book reviews. We’ll give you a little bite of insight from other students; students you’ve never met and students from other countries. We’ll try our best to give you some reprieve from the homework headache that’s bogging down your brain; consider us your Advil!
If you can feel your mind running hot with DPs, literary –isms, and/or German philosophers, take a moment to cool off and look through our first ever (revamped) edition of The Dolphin. We’re looking forward to being your sweet diversion and hope you’ll send us any of your creative tid-bits when something funny, peculiar, or exciting strikes your fancy.

No comments:

Post a Comment