Spring Break. Crystal clear waves crash against the snow white beach of the vacation getaway. The lemon yellow sun warmly beats upon your patio adorned with designer furniture, but it does not matter, your top-of-the line sunglasses protect your eyes from UV rays. Forget term papers, jobs and all other responsibilities. They no longer exist.

As you sip your favorite drink in your bubbly jacuzi, evening rolls around and you hear music coming from the exclusive dance club down the beach. You make your way there, where tons of scantily clad ladies bump and grind with gym-pumped morons to the soundtrack of Sisqo’s “The Thong Song.”

Yeah, this is Spring Break all right, courtesy of the marketing department at MTV.

The media seems to have this perception that we all have to go to some exotic hot spot for spring break and party like its still 1999.

Just check out some of the Spring Break sites on the internet. Spring-break-party.com’s homepage features a beautiful graphic of an idyllic beach, not to mention a bikini-clad female that looks like she was hit by a truckload of silicone. People magazine’s Spring Break page presents several sun-tanned hoochie-mamas dancing with some moron with his pants down.

Most of these sites pretend to inform students on fun ideas for Spring Break, but the majority of them are thinly disguised advertisements for Daytona Beach, Panama City and all of the other infamous Spring Break hot-spots.

Sure, partying is still at the top of many students’ agenda, but sheer necessity makes many of us stay home with a stack of textbooks and a cup of Folgers.

The closest many of us will get to an exotic getaway is tuning into the latest episode of Survivor while writing that term paper. Others will party the most while dancing along to the Burt Bacharach crackling out of the loudspeaker while ringing up another customer.

Forget all of those spastic, cosmetically mutated, 90210 zip-code sharing college students that you see on spring break specials. Let’s see what some real-life, down-to-earth Nicholls students are doing on Spring Break.

Elana Zirkle, nursing senior from Luling said “I’m doing homework,” which seems to be the general consensus among Nicholls students when it comes to break plans.

Some students have family responsibilities to tend to, as in the case of English senior William King. “I’m helping my mother around the house in order to get ready for a wedding party for my sister,” he said.

David Parks, freshman from Laplace said he plans to take “care of my brother, buy a jacuzi, and go to a trailer 45 minutes away from campus to catch up with some reading.”

Well, at least he’s got the jacuzi part down. That fits the Spring Break stereotype.

Others will spend the break catching up or thinking about their significant other.

Vocal performance senior Jeffrey Rodriguez will be visiting his girlfriend at LSU, while vocal music education major Jessamyn Calder said “I plan to get some work done and try not to miss my boyfriend too much.”

So to those who are fortunate enough to get away and have a blast for Spring Break, more power to you. To those who are stuck writing a term paper on boll weevils, driving Grandma to the nursing home, or working the night shift at the seven-eleven, remember that you are not alone.