Having a Kentucky fried spring break
Amy Schill
Dazed and Amused
Spring break. A time for fun in the sun, wild parties and eventual arrest and imprisonment in a Cancun "jail." Well, maybe your spring break wasn't that wild, but I hope you all had a great time.
However, I have a suggestion for next year's spring break (or frozen wasteland break, as it should be called here). I'm talking about a destination known for good times, great beaches and sexy singles. You guessed it. Kentucky.
All right. Maybe MTV has never been there and you might never see anyone sing the Bluegrass Gospel Boys on "Say What? Karaoke" (because the world is not right), but while Kentucky may not be the most obvious place to go and get busy, it is possible to have a good time without spending the entire week with Carson Daly.
I went to Kentucky as a part of the Appalachia Seminar (a.k.a. working for a week is not enough; you have to write a paper too, sucka!). The greatest thing about going to Appalachia is the complete lack of adult supervision provided for this University-sponsored trip. Good old Notre Dame gave us the brand spankin' new, fully loaded minivans and some vague directions telling us to go "somewhere yonder," written on a greasy Taco Bell napkin. Of course before we were entrusted with the very expensive machinery, all the drivers had to go to an extensive training meeting, where we were told, "Guys, be careful, okay?" and were then certified as professional race car drivers and, strangely enough, lifeguards. This apparent absurdity fascinated me so much that I had question the administration about it.
Me: Is this for real?
Administration: Straight up, Dawg.
Me: So what you're telling me is, we can't be in the same room with a member of the opposite sex after midnight, but you're entrusting us with brand new minivans, which I will undoubtedly either crash or in a desperate moment sell in exchange for Pop Rocks, and are letting us drive halfway across the country with absolutely no university supervision?
Administration: True dat.
Me: Sweet.
Administration: Don't have sex in the vans.
Recipients of such a rare glimpse of a duLac-free world, I'm still amazed my group didn't end up in Canada, never to be seen again.
We did end up going to Kentucky, but if there's one thing I learned from this trip, it's that college students are in no hurry to get anywhere. Having experienced many road trips with my parents, I know what it's like to get up extremely early, eating on the run and urinating in jars all in the name of "good time."
The Appalachia trip was a breath of fresh air. The supposed eight hour drive took us roughly 56 hours. Our trip was delayed by our ability to stop every five minutes for bathroom breaks, food breaks, driver switches, 40s at 4, et cetera. Thankfully, we had walkie-talkies to aid us in our inter-van communication, through which we conveyed such messages as, "Dude, I think you missed the exit," "Are we there yet?" and "Hey mutha, we just passed you. Who's yo' daddy?"
Yes, that road trip taught me about life, love and disgusting gas stations.
Oh, and Laura is definitely my daddy.
Well, 10 rest stops, 20 McDonald's and 15 listenings of Ludicrous later, we finally arrived in the Bluegrass state. As it turned out, there were several other colleges there, and they split us up to work with kids from other schools. Upon learning that we were to work with people other than white, upper middle-class, Catholic, Republican Notre Dame students, we became very confused and nearly high-tailed it to my daddy's (my real daddy's) place in the Hamptons.
Actually, getting to know the other students was one of the best parts of my Appalachia experience (though I still don't understand why they didn't all follow Irish football).
Okay, on to the actual work we did. I was the only Notre Dame student not assigned to shingle a roof, and I think that has something to do with the fact that on my application, under "construction skills," I wrote: Falling off of roofs and dying. So I was told to work on the outside of a trailer and try not to cause trouble.
I spent the entire week working in ankle-deep Kentucky mud, which is kind of like Woodstock mud except thicker and less mind-altering. So here I am, covered in mud, with absolutely no skills and no idea what I'm doing. After countless failures at hammering, drilling, measuring and soufflé-ing, I was assigned to be "the girl who holds the box of screws and tries not to burn down Kentucky." Though the title sounds humiliating, I did get the pleasure of uttering the phrase, "Hey baby, wanna screw?" multiple, multiple times. And I only burned down the really shady parts of Kentucky.
But seriously folks, I wasn't that bad. I certainly wasn't the best worker on my team and I made some mistakes, but I finally got a handle on the whole drilling thing and I had mad fun using the electric saw (yes, they let me use power tools). So the moral of the story is … go to Appalachia, fool. It's a lot of fun, you do important work and you just may find out who's yo' daddy.
Amy is a sophomore arts and letters major and she would like to give a mad shoutout to her Appalachia group.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, March 29, 2001
