COLUMN: Flinging ourselves at the Velcro walls of life

From Ariel Horn's, "Candy from a Stranger," Fall '00 From Ariel Horn's, "Candy from a Stranger," Fall '00Last year, on an unassuming cloudy day in April during Spring Fling, I found myself Velcroed to a wall. It was just as unpleasant as it sounds. All I remember was being stuck to the wall itself, wriggling insanely to free myself. People milling around the moonwalk-like Velcro wall just watched and laughed as my eyes (as well as my blood-curdling screams) begged them to rip me off the wall and free me. If I hadn't been so freaked out by the fact that I was flailing like a crushed bug on a wall with hundreds of bystanders pointing and laughing, maybe I would've laughed, too. It was almost worse than the "naked in class" dream. Almost. During the academic year, a lot of students end up feeling like they're stuck to a wall, though, like me, they're not sure how they got there. Though it's not a festively decorated multi-colored Velcro wall paid for by our tuition dollars, the wall students are trapped on is self-created, mortared together by stress and academic pressures. As spring semester progresses, stress, papers and exams pile on and the wall grows higher, its grip on us grows tighter and the possibilities of wrenching ourselves off the wall become more limited. Toward the end of the semester, pressure increases for students to work harder, hand in papers sooner and study for finals faster. Everything we really want to do is put on hold to make way for more immediate academic concerns. In other words, we're stuck to a metaphorical Velcro wall, arms flailing wildly in the wind, begging that somehow, someone will free us. Somewhere along the road, a couple of brainy college students realized that students don't particularly enjoy feeling like helpless bugs smeared against a window dashboard. Robert Frost may have been right: There is something that doesn't love a wall. And to break down that wall, if only temporarily, universities created their own versions of Bacchanalia festivities -- without Bacchus, of course. Pure, unadulterated partying for their student body to get some student body. Enter Spring Fling stage left. Universities everywhere are offering students a chance to break free from the wall through Spring Fling-like ventures. Our safety school, Harvard, has "Spring Fest" (where everyone over 21 is allowed to drink in a fenced-in area fondly known to students as "The Beer Corale"). Northwestern has "Dillo Day" (named after, naturally, the party animal of choice, armadillos) and the Cambridge University in England has "May Balls" (held in June, but by then they're too drunk to realize that it should be called "June Balls"). Each one of these schools lets students relax, forget about the pressure of academic life and feel free for at least one day. The question is, though, why are students so stressed out to begin with? How did we get trapped on the wall? Why do we need to be freed in the first place? Is it all because of classes, or is it self-imposed? At what point, for example, does a midterm that you did poorly on -- that has no bearing on your future (let alone the lifelong development of your soul) -- become so upsetting that it can ruin a day, a week or even a whole semester? When did we become bugs smashed against a wall? How do we return to our pre-bug states? Obviously, Spring Fling isn't the be-all and end-all of mental and emotional rehabilitation. Spring Fling may not be a font of meaningful experiences. It has its problems (like students waiting on line to throw themselves against walls), but it can remind us that there is more to life than a midterm, that we are not just students, but people -- and, of course, that we are not bugs. Spring Fling gives students, if only for a moment, the opportunity to go completely crazy with their friends, to remember that life isn't only about grades, to break free from a wall that otherwise has us flailing. And if it takes slamming yourself against a Velcro wall to forget that the wall is there, slam away.