I never felt more in touch with my half-Italian heritage than when I heard the old country saying "dolce far niente" or "it's sweet to do nothing." Doing nothing is a little taboo at Dartmouth but I'm taking the first step and admitting that there's nothing I'd rather do.
I could live without homework. Writing for The Mirror is fun and all, but come on, I could easily squeeze in another hour of slumber every week. I hope Haiti/world hunger/global warming gets well soon but I'm not about to man a committee, let alone a bake sale, when there are hundreds of kids who are eager to get that badge on their Girl Scout vest rsum. I say, let them have it.
So why come to Dartmouth, where the do-everything-ers dominate? Two words: Off terms.
Others might see them as opportunities to get a competitive internship at J.P./Goldman/Stanley/Citi/Gridley or a time to travel to the far reaches of the earth to end famine and genocide (a big undertaking in 10 weeks if you ask me), but I see them as paid vacation time.
Let me clarify a little. In addition to doing nothing, I like: reading really good books, eating really good food, listening to really good music and being with my really, really, really good friends; and if possible doing all of the above in the sun.
Where I come from the south shore of Long Island summers are meant to relax. You can throw in a camp counsellorship or some part time waitressing gig but not much more. I'm used to using the summer months to relax with friends and zero responsibilities. So it came as a big surprise to me when my freshman floormates spent Spring term prepping for internships or applying for fellowships. What fools, I thought, and went home to my friends and our annual Hanukkah-in-the-summer-fest, eight days and nights of hanging out and very little else (think Homecoming, Winter Carnival and Green Key all in a row). Not that those eight days were much different than my other nine weeks of summer
I actually did have a job my junior Winter. I lived at home and worked two days a week for a few hours a day at a local newspaper. It wasn't paid but was actually fun. I forgot to mention one of my other favorite pastimes: learning everyone else's business (i.e. gossip). Being an amateur reporter let me do just that, with slightly more legitimacy, as I spent all day calling school districts to see what they thought of new budget cuts or asking people on the street if they felt a local art gallery's nudie paintings were offensive. That is, I basically got to be a yenta in a way I could put on a rsum.
That one work experience tired me out and by junior Summer I was ready to go back to what I do best: nothing. It was a very happy summer. I visited friends in Boston, Vermont and the Hamptons, with my home base in sunny Oceanside, N.Y., where I busied myself with weekly manicures, tearing through novels on the beach (I'll be an elitist and add that just because you read them on the beach does not necessarily mean they're "beach reads" thankyouverymuch).
So have my off-terms at Dartmouth provided me with opportunities to explore my passions and future career goals? I'd say absolutely. I've even engineered my future to include more 10-week hiatuses from life. Yup, I'm going to be a teacher. I'll spend nine months of the year reading good books with good people (c'mon, high school students are amazingly amusing, have you checked out MySpace recently?) and the other three in the sun, where I belong, doing nothing.
