Busiest Person on Campus "Who wants to play identify the busy Midd-kid?"

Author: Eric Bartolotti

Aircraft carriers are a marvel of technology. In fact, they are so technically marvelous that at least 65 percent of most experts consider it "near impossible" for something to possibly go wrong aboard one of this metallic monsters. With one exception: the landing of the planes. Ask the nearest aircraft carrier architect; landing big planes on small runways is your grandma's favorite recipe for disaster. But allow us now to substantiate this deviation into the world of symbolic language.

My fellow Middlebury students, we are those airplanes and Middlebury is that aircraft carrier. Our long, lazy flight over the ocean - ah yes, that is our "Spring Break." And as for the landing of the planes, you all know what that is: re-entry week. Fortunately, by now, we are safely below deck in the hangars, refueling, rearming and being polished with dirty aircraft carrier rags (the rags are like homework).

But not all of us have returned from our sorties safely. Some of us took some anti-aircraft fire. Some of us crashed on deck. Some of our companions are MIA. The question stands: do you know your fellow pilots well enough? Do you know who took some flak and who took a Shamu dive straight to Atlantis?

QUIZ

Which of the following descriptions of re-entry weeks are from Middlebury College students, and which are from Mary Hogan Elementary students?

1. I had a whirlwind of meetings with piles of undone reading. Six meetings, two screenings, dance rehearsal, play rehearsal, and went to the gym every day. And class.

2. I had to build a cloud out of Legos.

3. I had a 10-page research paper, two other papers, and a quiz. I was also in the concert and trying to catch up on sleep after break.

?4. I had a five page paper for Shakespeare class, a 250-page novel, hosted a potential student for three days, turned in the first rough draft of my full-length play, had an Arabic test and those blasted response papers.

5. I had to do a finger-painting of a beachball. Unfortunately, I didn't read the handout on color theory and color blending during break, so the colors all mushed together and my beachball came out brown. But what's wrong with a brown beach-ball?

6. I watched a lot of Pokemon episodes during break. We're talking stuffed couch potato with sour cream. So I was really out of shape for freeze tag the entire next week and I got frozen all the time.

7. I got to take care of the class ferret over break. We became good friends.

8. I got so little sleep and drank so much coffee that I felt entirely detached from reality, eventually culminating in an all-consuming focus on my many works that I felt as I imagine one on Adderall would feel. I started using Twitter (follow me @teaandfury !).

9. We didn't do anything the week back except for a spelling test on Friday. Remember those, guys?

10. I finished my thesis before break, so I actually wasn't that busy. I had Japanese once a day, got plenty of sleep and read a comic book. By the way, I live in the German House, if any annoyed Middlebury students want to come down and bash me a good one for being so darn relaxed.