People are handling the pressure differently. My friend, Shalev, is working for a U.N. committee on the Middle East. Joe, Jason and Kevin are running off to Burlington for one last go ’round. And Jimbo – on the opposite end of the spectrum – is preparing to escape to the woods and survive on wild mushrooms.

I need adventure, too. I want to do something that in 15 years I can look back on with inflated memories. This year I’m joining my friend Charles in Bar Harbor, the Maine Mecca for the young and excited.

I’ve got a job as a desk clerk at a hotel. I don’t know how I got the job because I don’t have any experience with that sort of thing, but I’m really excited about it. I picture this being my summer that follows the plot of a movie. This is the summer where everything I’ve always imagined happening to me might just have a chance of coming true.

This is my “Dirty Dancing” summer: working man’s dream, helping guests’ by day, and running down to beach parties with the guests daughters at night. Patrick Swayze plays me in my movie, too.

I picture big sand dunes with tall grass on top and on the other side big bonfires on the beach. I see myself dancing the boogaloo and doing the twist to 1960s pop. It is 2004, but in my fantasy this is the only way to be.

People are telling me it won’t be like the fantasy I’ve dreamed up. They say I’ll get tired of the Bar Harbor bureaucracy. If I get one bonfire and a sideways glance from the cute shy girl from Pennsylvania, my summer is made.

Charles and I, true story, are living with an 80-year-old lady. I guess it’s common to live in a boarding house because the rent’s so steep. The woman’s name is Lola, and she’s a dear. We haven’t moved in yet, and already she’s calling us “honey” and “sweetie.”

Lola is renting all four bedrooms and sleeping on the couch for the summer. It’s a weird set-up. Charles thinks it’s so Lola can watch us come in at night, making sure we aren’t sneaking around. Her couch faces the door and has a massive bear skin rug draped over it.

We met Lola through another man who was renting rooms. He wrote out her number for us and left us singing, “whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.” It was a totally surreal experience, but it only makes me more excited for the summer.

So only two more weeks and I’ll be living the dream. I’ll probably be getting yelled at by guests with screaming children and spending sleepless nights listening to Lola hack up a lung on the couch. I don’t mind though, this is what I signed up for – something different.

Nate Katz is a junior journalism major.

Citing Mike Melochick’s column, “Gender bending: A loss of male dignity, one she-male at a time” in the April 26 edition of The Maine Campus, I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree with his description of himself as a “close-minded idiot.” Beyond that, I found his rant to be a poorly supported string of derogatory euphemisms and distorted facts. While he is entitled to his opinion, he must realize that it’s based on ignorance and bigotry. Above all else, I want him to understand very clearly that his hateful statements will not be tolerated.

It’s unfortunate that he thinks of reality television as an accurate model for real life. His two “strongest” examples are both drawn from television programs intended to entertain rather than educate. With reality show cast members speaking for entire groups of people, Melochick’s world must be a very confusing place. Perhaps this confusion explains the numerous falsities in his column.

Perhaps he couldn’t see it through the shrouds of his own ignorance, but the example taken from Australian Idol does not portray transgendered individuals negatively. The fact that he describes Courtney’s success as “weird” merely reinforces his status as a narrowminded bigot. His use of an openly gay drag queen implies that he has confused transgenderism with homosexuality. If he had bothered to do any research beyond the dim confines of his own skull, he would have learned that sexual orientation is in no way dependent on gender or sex.

More importantly, his opening line asserts that “There has always been a distinct line drawn in the sand separating the two genders.” Again, basic research would have informed him that this is not the case. To think that masculinity and femininity are divided by a clear-cut dichotomy is as foolish as thinking that sexual orientation is clearly split between gay and straight. As with sexual orientation, gender exists on a spectrum between the extremes of masculine and feminine. Beyond this, even Melochick’s assumption that transgenderism is universally viewed as repulsive is quite inaccurate.

Although there are definitely many other people who share his fear-based ignorance, there are many more who view transgenderism not as a threat, but as a gift. As I hope someone has already shared with you, transgendered individuals were central to the Native American cultures of the American Southwest.They were referred to as berdache, or Two Spirit, and were seen as having gifts not given to those who identify themselves only as masculine and feminine.

With Melochick as an example, I concede that there is a great deal of ignorance in the world. I believe, however, that this ignorance will slowly be stamped out. Melochick stands directly in the path of a progressive force much larger and stronger than himself, and I doubt that even his fast cars will help him escape his inevitable trampling.

Dylan Montgomery

Sophomore chemistry major

* Correct foreign policy

For the third time The Maine Campus has slandered the Spanish people. Two cartoons and an opinion piece by Marshall Dury try to paint the Spaniards as cowards, collaborators or as capitulating to Islamic terrorists. None of this is true. Eighty percent of the Spanish people opposed sending their troops to Iraq, rightly seeing it as supporting an American Imperial adventure with no grounds in either international law or support by the United Nations. They had no problem sending troops to Afghanistan and in fact are planning to send more troops there. This is because they saw that the war in Afghanistan was a war against terrorism, specifically against al-Qaida, and they saw the war in Iraq as an illegal and misdirected war that would only increase terrorism, not prevent it. Events have proven them right as terrorists flock to Iraq, and many more are being created daily by the brutal attacks on Fallujah – 600 people killed to avenge four American soldiers of fortune.

Nevertheless, the Spanish government, led by a right-wing Bush supporter, Aznar, chose to ignore the wishes of his countrymen and sent 1,300 troops to Iraq. An election was coming up and the opposition candidate, Se�or Zapatero, promised to withdraw the troops if elected. This was months before the train bombings in Madrid. He felt that Iraq was not a theater in the war against terror even though Bush wrongly tried to conflate Iraq and Afghanistan as both responsible for Sept. 11. Zapatero was just trying to bring back democracy to the issue of Iraq. The Spanish people voted Zapatero back in office after the train bombings because they were sick of Aznar trying to blame the Basque separatists for the atrocities and for being an authoritarian/anti-democratic government. Now al-Qaida is again threatening Spain if it does not pull its troops from Afghanistan. Zapatero refused and increased his governments efforts to help the European Union fight terror.

The attempts to paint the Spanish people as cowards and terrorist supporters are not based on fact but the twisted propaganda of the Bush administration supported by Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers and television news channels. I support Spain’s wise decision not to be duped by President Bush or Aznar. They are fighting terrorism and their election showed true democracy in action, even if President Bush and his cabinet try to paint them as cowards. Please try to get the history and facts straight before you slander them again.

Robert Mendoza

Junior English major

If college students are guilty of anything, it’s ignoring important issues until they’re six inches in front of our faces. Think about the parking “crunch” – no one would give a hoot about resident or commuter lots until they found the spot filled with someone else’s truck.

An ugly metaphor perhaps, but it certainly holds true in most sectors of collegiate existence. In today’s special section on ethnic diversity at the University of Maine (see page 1), some students say that UMaine, culturally, is representative of the makeup of the state itself. They maintain that diversity is not only a matter of skin color.

These ideas have merit, and it’s heartening to find evidence of this kind of thinking going on at the Orono campus. But no one should be content that UMaine is an adequate reflection of the state’s general ethnic diversity level. In a perfect world, The Maine Campus would not have to have written the first two articles in this series, detailing the plight facing ethnic diversity groups on campus.

But the fact is, these groups are facing crises of self-identification. The fact is, the campus does – as Shezwae Fleming offered in the Campus’ first diversity article on April 15 – operate in “silos.” And the fact is, there are minority students on this campus who continue to feel left out.

As an institute of higher learning and the flagship university, UMaine has an obligation to serve its state, but also to serve its students.

This is not a moral harangue, but an imperative. After all, no one can force anyone to open their eyes wider; learning and contributing to a community are proactive sciences. And this can and should be a two way street.

By participating in and advocating for the creation and sustenance of all types of ethnic diversity groups on this campus, students not only improve themselves, but improve the community by lending interest to an often-ignored aspect of campus life. Yes, we have “enough” cultural diversity. But who has ever been content with “enough?

If you like the outdoors, try climbing Mount Katahdin, or bike/camp/hike through Acadia National Park or Baxter State Park. There are hundreds of places to explore Maine’s beautiful wilderness. If you are less interested in the woods and more into the sun, you could try one of Maine’s many beaches such as Popham, Old Orchard or Reed State Park.

If you like being outside but hate the rugged outdoors, check out some of the festivals and fairs that take place each year. From Rockland’s Lobsterfest to Portland’s Old Port Festival to the Skowhegan and Bangor State Fairs, the state has much to offer. Also, there is always the immensely popular National Folk Festival, in its third and final year in Bangor. This free three-day event attracted more than 100,000 people to Banor’s waterfront in 2003.

Love the night life? Like to boogie? Check out some of Maine’s clubs and bars such as Bangor’s The Bounty, Sea Dog, Benjamin’s, Spectrum and Russell’s or Orono’s Ushuaia, Bear Brew Pub, Margarita’s and Pat’s.

If you are a music lover, you will be pleased with the variety of summer shows. The Augusta Civic Center will host A Perfect Circle at the beginning of the summer. Visit the Central Maine Civic Center in Lewiston for performances by John Hiatt, Taking Back Sunday, The Living End, David Byrne and Reel Big Fish over the course of the summer. Or check out a smaller show at Augusta’s The Edge for Piebald, Avoid One Thing, Lime Town Riot, Big D and the Kids Table, and two UMaine student bands, Softer and Skawabunga.

Many of Maine’s theaters have wonderful summer schedules including shows like “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” featured at Lakewood Theater in Skowhegan. If you’re a fan of Shakespeare, Monmouth Theater is putting on productions of “As You Like It” and “Antony and Cleopatra.”

Granted doing most of these things involves a mode of transportation and cash, so for those without one or both, you can always watch Saturday Night Live re-runs on Comedy Central or bake in the warm Maine sunshine. Enjoy.

What if I told you that Stephen King, not Mark David Chapman, murdered John Lennon? What if I said that Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were behind it? That’s exactly what Steve Lightfoot says on his Web site, www.lennonmurdertruth.com.

His evidence is intriguing. First of all, Chapman, the man convicted for killing Lennon, looked a lot like Stephen King at the time. Also, as Lightfoot writes, “Almost all of Stephen King’s material exhibits possible relationships to the assassination of John Lennon,” as well as, “images relating to horror and terror.”

He cites every place in every book King published between 1975 and 1982, where one character shoots another character, and every instance where King mentions “The Beatles.” As you explore his Web site you can almost imagine Lightfoot beside you, jumping up and down shouting, “See? See?”

The “government codes” are great. According to Lightfoot, the U.S. Government delivers top-secret messages by distributing them across dozens of newspaper headlines. These headlines include, “Le Monde Under Attack,” “Killing One’s Enemies” and “Jailing the News.” Lightfoot does not seem to understand that journalists, not government agents, write newspaper articles, and that editors write headlines.

There is also a place where Chapman’s name was distributed across two different letters to the editor in 1980 issues of U.S. News & World Report. The letters were from service members dreading Reagan’s presidency. It is not an incredible coincidence, in my opinion, that a man whose last name was Chapman might use the phrase “mark my words.”

Of course, I may be biased. I write for the media here at The Maine Campus, and King wrote for this newspaper when he was a college student. We may be covering something up. Some Maine Campus headlines for the past year have included “Horror Rock Lives On,” “Breathing Room,” “GSS Election Results Challenged” and “Open Your Heart, Not Your Legs.” Does this mean that Derek Francis, a style writer for The Maine Campus, murdered Weird Al’s parents? That’s for you to decide.

Better yet, take the coded message in last December’s issue of Penthouse. “Marshall … thrust his … knife … hard into … [Elliott] Smith’s…breast.” This message was distributed across six different pages, buried in otherwise innocent paragraphs. Did Marshall Dury, The Maine Campus’ opinion editor, stab singer-songwriter Elliott Smith in the chest? Hey, I’m not saying that The Maine Campus is a government training ground for assassins of celebrities, but I’m not saying it isn’t.

Maybe we should be concentrating on poor Steve Lightfoot. For more than 20 years, the man has been saving these random newspaper clippings, and now running a Web site trying to convince the world that Stephen King killed Lennon. John Lennon’s death obviously hit him pretty hard. Actually, many of Stephen King’s most memorable characters are paranoid or crazy. Perhaps every one of these is an explicit reference to Steve Lightfoot.

Sexton played his entire set solo, using no instruments other than a Godin acoustic guitar and his own voice. Unlike other artists of similar genre, Sexton managed to employ a range of sounds, creating the auditory illusion that there was more than one individual performing on the stage. At times he would scratch his guitar strings, pound on the guitar body like a drum, beat box , scat into the mic, or use distortion pedals. Not once did he use a guitar pick.

The set flowed, each song sliding into the next. For the first half hour, Sexton let his music do the talking. The crowd, which initially was only about 150 people, swelled to fill most of the dining room by the halfway mark.

Wearing a faded plain black T-shirt and worn jeans, what Sexton lacked in appearance he made up for in charisma. Though he made a few mistakes during the performance, he left no long awkward pauses.

“This is a song called ‘Diner’ for your listening and dining enjoyment,” he said while introducing the song. He began to play the song, stopped, and pretended to rewind his voice.

“This is a song called ‘Diner,’” he said while starting the song over again, to the delight of the audience.

He even sang in one song, “I’m going to remember the words to my own song.”

Crowd participation was soaring though the last song, which was a cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain.” Though he alleged that he had just learned the song and had played it only once before, his performance was energetic and flawless.

Sexton, who has four albums, a two-disc live album, and his own record label, is a native of Syracuse, N.Y. and currently lives in western Massachusetts, according to his Web site.

Like many artists, Sexton maintains his popularity and promotes his records by touring, said Kelly Donnelly, assistant vice president of Student Entertainment. Student Entertainment organized the event, and the Campus Board of Activities helped with production.

“I personally always have been a fan of [Sexton's] music,” Donnelly said. “I’m glad that he came, and I think that people really responded to it. We wanted to go out with a bang, and I think we really accomplished that.”

Sexton’s performance was Student Entertainment’s last act of the semester. Student Entertainment advertised the concert to be on the mall with a free barbecue, but due to the weather the event was moved inside. The barbecue was still held outside on the patio. Despite the change of venue, Donnelly still considered the event a great success.

“The student body, from what I saw, really, really liked him,” Donnelly said.

Members of the audience seemed to agree.

“He had a different sound than anybody I have ever heard before,” said Nicole Morin, a third-year student.

“I thought it was groovy that he came up here for a sort of free concert at six o’clock,” said Valerie Doyle, a fourth-year student.

Colby pitcher Lauren Olmsted was able to keep Maine scoreless in the first two innings, but then gave up three runs in the third and four in the fourth to drop the decision.

Maine scored when sophomore Brittany Cheney hit a triple off the right center wall, scoring senior Sarah Asadoorian from first. An RBI infield single by Jess Brady proceeded to bring Cheney to the plate, and give Maine the 2-0 lead. Amy Kuhl , who has been strong offensively for the Black Bears, finished off the inning by hitting an RBI single. The hit scored Brady from second.

Colby tried to counter in the top of the fourth, but could only get one run on the board, when Maine pitcher Sarah Bennis loaded the bases and walked in a run, scoring freshman Miki Starr. Bennis picked up the win improving to 6-8 on the season. In the outing, Maine used all four of its pitchers in the game. Candace Jaegge got the start giving up three hits and no runs in the first two innings. She was followed by Bennis, who pitched the third and fourth, and was followed by Alexis Pullen, who pitched two hitless and scoreless innings. Jenna Merchant closed out the game in the seventh.

Maine added four runs in the bottom of the fourth to put away the White Mules 7-1. Lauren Dulkis had a base hit in the inning, which brought home two runs, scoring Cheney and sophomore Kate Joseph.

Maine improved to 19-15 overall on the season and 6-6 in conference play. With the defeat, Colby fell to 13-11-1. Head coach Deb Smith was able to get nearly all of her players in the line-up in the decision.

Maine collected hits from nine different players, a total of 13 hits on the day including three from Brady, and two each from Erin Provost and Assadorian. Brady also had two steals in the game, moving her stolen base total to 43, one shy of the Maine team record of 44. She will have her chance to tie or even break it against the Terriers on Wednesday. But, it will take more than base running to pick up a win against a tough BU team.

“We’ve come together a lot as a team, and we know what we have to do,” Dulkis said . “Whether we win or lose, it’s going to be together.”

Maine looks to move to at least 5-3 or 6-2 down the stretch to make the America East tournament, which will be held May 13-15 on Kessock Field in Orono. Maine leads the conference with a .964 fielding percentage.

“We’re actually leading the conference right now in defense,” Smith said. “That’s been one of our sources of pride.”

After BU, Maine is set to host Vermont for a three-game series beginning at noon Saturday with a doubleheader. They will play a single game on Sunday, also at noon. Vermont is 2-10 in conference play and 22-29 overall. It stands in second to last in the conference standings, while Maine is in currently in fifth place.

Athletes competed in a race that consisted of a 3.1-mile run, a 1-mile canoe race and a 6.1-mile bike race.

The field consisted of both four- member teams and individual participants. The event is in its 15th year and is organized by Campus Recreation.

Top race finishers included first- place team S2C2, which included Jeff Hunt and Eric Hanson in the canoe. Rounding out the team was Scott O’Connor running and Scott Forrestall on the bike. The team completed the course in 45:30.

Top finisher for individuals and fourth overall was Matthew Dura in 52:20.4.

The race began at 2 p.m. at the Steam Plant parking lot. Runners began on College Avenue and did a 3.1 mile loop around the UMaine campus. The runners turned up the hill by the Alfond Arena, up to Hilltop, toward Public Safety, then continued onto Park Street in Orono where they later turned back on College Avenue. The runners tagged off to the canoe leg of the race. The canoes traveled down Stillwater River then back upstream to loop back to the boat landing area. The athletes then tagged their teammates or jumped on the bikes themselves. The bikers traveled the same course as the runners, but made two trips around the loop.

Team Sig Ep had almost a two-minute lead over second-place team S2C2 at the end of the running leg of the triathlon. S2C2 canoe team members made up almost two minutes and 30 seconds in the 1-mile canoe race coming out with a 30-second lead headed into the bike leg of the event.

Hunt said the team’s strategy was to go the shortest distance of the course. The S2C2 boat cut off the Sig Ep canoe, which went closer to the shoreline while S2C2 was more in the center of the river.

“We had the guns in the front,” Hunt said in reference to Hanson, who was in the bow of the canoe.

Dura said he enjoyed the extra challenge of competing by himself. He noted he got to have someone accompany him in the canoe leg of the race.

The finishers were first S2C2, 45:30; second Sig Ep, 46:24; third Intensive English Rockets, 52:20; fourth Matthew Dura, 52:20.5; fifth Ryan MacDonald, 57:57; sixth Zach Gray, 1:03:25; seventh Dave Arena, 1:06:59. Times for Susan March and Shannon Coiley were unavailable at press time.

While most of the campus is still wallowing in the hockey team’s gut-wrenching championship game defeat and the rest focus in on the baseball team’s upcoming streak of important conference duels, another spring team on campus quietly idles past the spotlight. Let’s be honest – rarely does any college track team in any college campus in the country garner the attention it deserves. It doesn’t matter if it’s a team the caliber of Stanford or a low-rent Division III squad. Track just doesn’t snatch the headlines. The story is no different in the friendly comforts of Orono, where our school squads seem to be swept aside like leftover snow in March. However, last Saturday, the women’s team continue the type of performances that any fan of athletics appreciates.

This past Saturday, the Black Bears split squads, sending teams to New Hampshire and the prestigious Penn Relays to compete. When they returned home, they brought with them some of the best performances of the year. Maine sent 22 athletes to compete at the Relays. The team began competition on Thursday afternoon at the Penn Relays, a nationally recognized track meet that attracts some of the world’s top athletes, with an explosion of fantastic displays. The meet, which is held at Franklin Field on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, opened with arguably Maine’s finest performance of the week. In the 4×400 meter relay, the team made up of Katie Souviney, Silvia Scaldaferri, Amanda Virgets and Hana Pelletier came across the finish line with a school record time of 3:53.02. The time smashed the previous university record for the relay, which was set in 1997. The Black Bears sparkling performance early on Thursday afternoon managed to foreshadow a plethora of breakout performances for the team. Maine followed with a standout mark in the 4×100 relay, with a time of 49.83. The dazzling time was good enough for the team of Souviney, Scaldaferri, Stephanie McCusker and Rachel McCaslin to win their section. The Black Bears also collected strong showings in the high jump and the shot put. Claire Poliquin cleared 1.67 meters in the high jump to finish fifth in the Eastern College division, while Katie Page merited a 14th place finish in the shot put.

“It’s just an awesome experience; it’s like a big carnival,” Kristen Vidlak said about the prestigious meet.

Vidlak also took the time to discuss the team’s performance at the relays. Although when looking back at the meet she believes there are several aspects the girls would change, but overall they are quite content with their performances.

“The top 15 performance in the country is nothing to be ashamed with,” Vidlak said.

Maine continued its success on and off the track on Friday when McCusker set an outdoor personal best of 38 feet, 1.25 inches for ninth place in the Eastern College Division. The Black Bears also garnered an impressive tally in the 4×200 relay, clocking in with a seventh-place finish. The relay team was composed of Souviney, Erin Hatch, Scaldaferri, and Virgets. The final day of the Penn Relays kept in the same tradition as the first two days, with another relay team putting on a fine display. The 4×800 relay team of Kristen, Virgets, Heather Jovanelli and Pelletier ran the second best time in school history of 9:01:88 to come across in 14th place in the “Championship of America” race.

As for the split squad that headed to New Hampshire, the performance of Katie Page highlighted the team’s appearance. Page finished first in the discus with a throw of 41.91 meters, while Laura Catterson finished fourth in the same event. Page also raked in a third-place slot in the shot put and fifth in the javelin to complete her commanding day.

The meets this past weekend highlighted a team that is gelling at just the right moment, an aspect that doesn’t go unnoticed by Vidlak.

“This year’s team is awesome, we are so together and we are all really focused,” Vidlak said. “It will be exciting to see what we can do at the conference meet.”

The sparkling performances this past week were foreshadowed by the Poliquin’s spectacular showing in the Mt. SAC relays in California, two weeks ago. In one of the most well-known meets in the country, Poliquin beat an overwhelming total of 40 girls to claim the second spot in the nation, jumping an astonishing 5 feet, 8 inches. Before the fantastic display, Poliquin had already qualified for the NCAA qualifier in Orlando, Fla, and is currently ranked as the top seed in the America East Conference.

Maine returns to action this weekend in the all-important America East Conference Championship, which serves as the first in a long line of crucial meets. After the team competes at the America East Championship at Northeastern, the following weekends will see the team travel to compete at the New England Championships, again at Northeastern, and then the ECAC Championships at Yale. The final leg of the season will conclude at the all-inclusive NCAA Qualifier in Orlando, Fla.

When asked about what she foresees and anticipates in the near future for the Black Bears, Vidlak didn’t hesitate in giving an answer.

“It’s going to be a busy couple of weeks,” Vidlak said. “Hopefully we can get a lot of New England qualifiers.”

Seriously though, there are unlimited options to engage yourself in every summer, and as school winds down to a screeching halt – thank God – it is imperative you incorporate at least three of these items around your summer schedule. Do it and you will have created a few events to look forward to in an otherwise hard-working college summer – if in fact you actually did get a job in today’s economy (and I applaud you on that if you did).

1) Take trips to the beach. Nothing screams summer more than the ocean and all it provides. Low tide makes for ideal conditions when launching the Frisbee or football, or playing my favorite ultimate lazy beach game: bocce ball. It’s all here and waiting for you to descend upon the sand. After a few days in the sun and water and perhaps playing games you hadn’t thought about all year, the work-week suddenly will seem more bearable.

2) Hit up a little league field after hours and play homerun derby. Everyone’s favorite game back in middle school, homerun derby was sort of an underground cult society. Rules were different everywhere but we all insisted the way WE played was the right way, no matter whose turf we were on. There was always that one kid who no one would let pitch, and he was made to just stand in the outfield and shag fly balls. Yes, it does bring back memories. So do it again this summer; if anything, you’ll get some aggression out.

3) Go skydiving. This is a ridiculous sport and something everyone should try. It’s first on my list and I’m sure I’ll do it more than once before August. It may cost a pretty penny but every cent is worth the adrenaline rush you get before, during and after the free-fall. Should your stomach or fear of extreme heights prevent you from doing this, try bungee jumping instead. It’s much lower to the ground than skydiving and less expensive. Plus, you’re attached to a perfectly safe and stable rubber line, which is tightly wrapped around your feet … cue sarcastic grunt here.

4) Go to a major league baseball game. Contrary to the rumors of American Idol taking over, this sport is still America’s favorite pastime. If you can, try to make it to a day game. The afternoon sun casting shadows across the diamond is enough to make a native from Greenland understand what summer is. Side note: attempt to eat one hot dog and drink one beer during each inning. If the game goes to extra innings, well, then I hope you brought your MasterCard.

5) I have two words for you: water sports. Tubing, water skiing, knee boarding, fishing, boating, jet skiing. Makes you want to jump in the ole’ swimming trunks right now doesn’t it? It would take up a whole page describing how fun and appropriate all of these are during the summer, but no time between the months of June and August are more perfect. Make sure three of them are accomplished before Labor Day weekend, or try and do them all … in one day.

6) Take up golf. Even people such as myself – with a horrible temper when it comes to sports and competition – can learn to play and tolerate this game. It’s simply the best sport for warm weather. No lawn is groomed as nicely as a golf course and no satisfaction is equal to that of your first par on a golf hole. Start at the driving range, maybe take a lesson, or just hack at a round of 18 on a low-cost course. Soon you’ll be making contact, becoming knowledgeable and eventually be obsessed with the game – trust me. It happens to everyone.

7) Make up a new game. Each summer tends to bring this practice into full swing. Boring weekend afternoons carry with them a creative spark that shocks everyone at one point or another. The stupidity level is astronomical when it comes to these new games, but incredibly fun at the same time. At that point it doesn’t matter – just as long as friends, food, drinks and a game of any type are involved. The game will go on.

Of course the activity list is eternal, but try a couple of these. You might be surprised at what interests you. Look at this as additional fun to accompany post-exam, or post-graduation, euphoria.