The Most Common Souvenir

6 April 2011Indre S

The first day back from Spring Break always brings pandemonium. Though friends are simply reunited after a brief separation, an observer could easily assume this time period was a lifetime; screams, laughter, and smiles engulf the campus. The typical questions of “How was your break?” or “Where did you go for break?” are also common, but perhaps fewer than one would think. Conclusions can be made at first glance with one infamous characteristic: the tan.

The tan comes in many shades and forms. A short list includes the goggle tan, the sock tan, the sunburn, the orange, the glow, and, last but not least, the lack of the fore-mentioned. Each of these is key to deciphering what one’s break entailed.

The goggle tan is most obvious; a skiing holiday provides the inevitable outcome of one of these, and is quite hard to miss. The goggle tan is also included in a variety of athletic tans, showing holidays that did not exclusively involve sitting on a couch or lying on a beach.

The sock tan, shorts tan, shin-guard tan, and, let us not forget the infamous uni-suit tan, are easier to hide whilst the weather is still a post-winter chill, yet they are still a temporary tattoo of the past two weeks.

Finally, there are the total body tans, which immediately give way to the assumption that this student was recently far closer to the equator than Mill Bay. They also can produce a timeline of one’s break; the amount of time spent in the cold versus that spent in the heat can be judged by the shade. The dark brown/orange reveals that the bearer of the dramatic change in skin tone was lucky enough to enjoy the beach for the majority of the break. The glow shows either an extremely sunscreen-conscious student, or someone who may have enjoyed only a few days of the smoldering sun. The contrast of this, unfortunately, is also present at Brentwood; sunburn is a dead giveaway of one’s vacation destination.

Though not all students arrive back at school with a newfound flush of melanin, it is undeniable that these souvenirs of various spring break getaways make for an interesting return. Before a conversation even starts, the question of where in the world one was can be avoided, or at least narrowed down. Stamped by the sun, students prove that Brentwood breaks are by no means exclusive to a return home.

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