Perfect '10- Stephanie

The first thing that comes to any college student’s mind when he hears the phrase ‘spring break’ is a three-day to week-long party complete with bikinis and endless amounts of alcohol. Whether it’s Mexico, Padre or some kid’s garage, there’s bound to be a party somewhere. For me, not so much. A few days before leaving my family to come back to College Station after Christmas break, my parents surprised me and my 12-year-old brother with a seven-day trip to the Cayman Islands for spring break. I’m not a huge partier; I love my family, and I needed to get tan — so this sounded amazing. Also being a freshman, I wasn’t really aware of the college spring break stereotypes. I thought everyone would be with their families, but I was so wrong.
Starting in February, I kept getting invites from my friends to go to Galveston or Padre and stay in some condo and basically go crazy for a few days. I’d turn the offers down with an apologetic, “Aw, I’m sorry. I’m going to the Caymans.” Their responses were basically that of “Your loss,” which surprised me because well, who wouldn’t want to go to the Caymans? Then I started realizing that I was the only person going somewhere with my family. I wasn’t too worried until we actually got to the resort.
I go out to the beach the first day, and I’m expecting to see hundreds of people my age, specifically guys. Then I realize that I’m the only person over 14 who’s not on a honeymoon or 25th wedding anniversary trip. Oh well, I thought, this is a perfect opportunity to be alone and get so tan that everyone back in College Station would be jealous. So I, being the overly confident white girl that I am, decided to lay out for four hours without any sun block. Come on, I needed to get black, and I never burn, so what could go wrong? Well, I did burn, and I didn’t just burn, I got completely fried to the point where just wearing a T-shirt caused excruciating pain. Cool. Because I couldn’t lay out anymore, I decided to study for the four tests I have coming up this week. But don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all academics and applying sunburn soothing gel. My family and I would center our day around the meals, which were wonderful. If we were really feeling crazy, we’d get ice cream after eating the restaurant’s massive dessert, and once we stayed up until 11:30 p.m. watching the fourth Harry Potter movie. What could be better?
So I may have missed out on a crazy time, but at least when I get back and everyone else is complaining about regretting having made some pretty dumb decisions while swept up in the college spring break craziness, I’ll have no regrets — well, except that I didn’t wear sunscreen and now my face is peeling and it looks like I have some rare skin disease. But hey, that will be gone within a few days. At least I didn’t get a giant gothic cross tattoo across my whole back.