Waters to Wine - 1/14/10

J-Term is here! Ring the bells! Sound the alarm! It’s that most wonderful time of the year.

As The Campus’ resident alcohol columnist, it probably comes as no surprise that I spend most of my year counting down to J-Term.

For me, these four weeks of free time, outdoor recreation and binge drinking comprise a religious experience. In fact, some might say that for Middlebury students, J-Term is similar to Ramadan.

Except, instead of fasting and praying for a month, everyone just gets wasted. As college students, it is our solemn duty to make the most of these four weeks of reduced workload and increased relaxation, and I know exactly how. You guessed it — drinking.

Now, I’m being intentionally glib, so don’t think that I’ve just completely given up trying to provide anything of substance; I don’t think we should all be perpetually wasted for the entire month of January.

However, I do think that J-Term provides an opportunity for consuming alcohol in ways different from those during the rest of the school year.

You see, during the fall and spring semesters, it can sometimes be too easy to get caught up in the routine of class all week, stress and little sleep, only to be followed by a weekend release of epic proportions — blowing off a little steam by drinking heavily, making some bad decisions and using alcohol only as a poorly-prescribed antidote to a week’s worth of challenges.

Too often during the regular semester, drinking becomes overwhelming in and of itself.

It exists in proportion to the amount of stress we all have, so as we work excessively hard, we destroy our bodies that much harder as well.

Drinking becomes the activity, rather than an accessory to enjoyment of something else. J-Term is the time to remedy this.

Because of our more flexible schedules during J-Term, we can take the time to use alcohol more intentionally — rather than force feed ourselves copious amounts of the stuff in some short period over the weekend, we can plan specific events or take a few drinks that might enhance the other things we’re pursuing.

J-Term might be the time to explore the world of wine — to figure out what you like, and what you don’t (or at least not yet).

It might be a good opportunity to home brew some beer or take a tour of some breweries in the area. One might get really into cocktails and uphold the sacredness of the cocktail hour, having a finely mixed beverage to take the edge off before dinner.

Or perhaps the après ski scene is more to your liking, and coming home after a day on the slopes, nothing could be better than a couple of drinks with friends. J-Term provides an opportunity to consume alcohol as it should be consumed: for personal enjoyment and enhancement of all else that we do.

Instead of confining our drinking to a few short hours, concealing it under the cover of darkness on the weekends, we can consume alcohol with maturity and intention.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that during January typical collegiate hijinks are forgotten — there will still be large parties, binge drinking and general debauchery in substantial amounts, as there should be.

But we should also take the time to slow down and really enjoy what we’re doing, whether it involves alcohol or not. College is a short four-year period, and it goes by quickly, so it’s essential to slow down whenever the opportunity is provided.

During January, we should all take the time to relax, take stock of what is around us and enjoy it to the fullest extent.

Alcohol can help in this process, but J-Term can be one of the defining moments of the college experience, so make sure you’re still able to remember it, too.