Wracking winter

It's chronologically impossible to do anything of actual importance during winter break.\nThe problem is not just that the break is too short, or that it's too long. It's that it's both. During spring break, just one week, students can go on trips to Florida to tan, Mexico to drink, Colorado to ski or various other places. During summer break, almost three whole months, students get jobs, take summer classes, go on a family vacation, etc. Both of these breaks fall within very specific lengths of time appropriate for different things. I propose, however, that winter break falls within an imperfect stretch of time. It is one of those abhorrent durations which are completely conducive to doing diddlysquat. \nThree weeks is not quite long enough to get back into the rhythm of working at a job, but it's too long to spend the whole time on a single family trip. You go out for a week or two, then are left with these ineffectual nubs on either end that are pretty much only useful for napping, sitting and sleeping. \nThe break is deceptively long as well, prompting students to create grandiose plans, only to put them off because "there'll be time later, I've got three weeks!" I did it this winter: I had a couple of things I wanted to do during break. Read "The Silmarillion," learn French and stay at Steak 'n Shake for 24 hours. Yet during the first week, I pretty much played HALO and watched movies. Of course, by the third week I had only read the book, hadn't stayed at Steak 'n Shake for more than three hours at a time and learned to say nothing more than "elbow" in French. \nAs I see it, there are two options to fixing this problem: lengthen the break or shorten the break. Talking to my fellow students, it seems that the first and second weeks are generally fun and relaxing for all. The third, however, is seven days of wracking pain in a caliginous abyss of boredom and despair, longing for the prophesied morn when all could return to the sacred land of the university, where there are the treasured pastimes of hanging out, being away from my parents and, yeah, even classes. \nOr something like that, anyway. Regardless, two weeks would not only annihilate this much-despised third-week slump, but still allow for the celebration of: the "holidays," if you're a Christian, and the New Year, if you use the Gregorian calendar. And with this newly acquired week, IU could extend spring or summer breaks, or (dare I say it?) create a fall break that runs a full week! \nThere's also the option to extend the winter break, but there are a few potential problems. Breaks more than three but fewer than 10 weeks are uncharted territory, and would require experimentation to determine the optimal psychological effects. There's also the issue of where these new weeks would come from. Unless Superman changes the rotation of the Earth to give us additional days in the year, these weeks would have to come out of summer break, which would only lead to riots comparable to those of the Bobby Knight era.\nThe administration should discuss altering the length of winter break, and the student body should consider the benefits. Hopefully, Indiana Daily Student readers will not think that I'm out to detract from their snow-frolicking fun -- stealing their vacation to cause them pain and suffering. Small sacrifices during the winter or summer could help to make fall or another break a more splendid time of year. In the end, managing our breaks more effectively will help us all to be more stress-free throughout the year.\nAnd that, so I hear, is a good thing.