After a long winter and a spring season that can never make up its mind what climate it wants to be, summer is a much anticipated time for all types of people. Whether school, work, or pleasure opportunities, many of these plans have been in the making for months, while others are more spontaneous. Take a look at your own group of friends and you may find those who fit these categories.
Summer Sales
It’s time to dust off those uni-colored polos (typically orange or gray) and matching snapbacks. The field is white, all ready to harvest those commissions that will nail you the top salesman award at the end-of-year cruise. Although the days are long and hard, the weekends provide the opportunity to show off what you’ve accomplished at the gym over the past nine months; documented through pictures at the beach, skins vs. skins volleyball games, and even more time at the gym (don’t forget to flex!). When the summer is over, with all the money you made, you don’t have to worry about working for the rest of the year. Focus on the essentials like getting you and your bros to the gym on a scooter, house parties, and hot tubbing. #squadgoals
On the way to the hot tub after a clutch day of sales!
Study Abroad
Not to be confused with a sudden increase in European art or Asian literature, a study abroad program provides students the opportunity to study things they have relatively no interest in or will not use (obviously not in all cases) while simultaneously receiving a cultural experience by being able to take pictures next to well-known historical icons. Imagine, a whole summer of asking people: “Will you take a picture of me while I stare pensively at something vague in the background?”
For a great Instagram account making fun of these types of pictures, follow @socalitybarbie
Or taking a picture every time you’re on a plane.
Airplane wings. Letting the world know you didn’t ride first class
Other opportunities abound such as finding love in a foreign place with those in your group. Back home, it was easy for the person you liked to give you the slip when they didn’t want to date you. Now they’ll be stuck with you for six weeks in close quarters with no chance of escape. Act now! You’ll be all the rage back home among your friends as you show off all your pictures and all the places you went. Just hope that they don’t ask you about the artistic style of Botticelli during the Renaissance, you weren’t paying attention.
Internship
Congratulations! You’ve decided to get your act together, stop frolicking abroad, and realized that your sex appeal to do sales disappears in your 30’s. You’re thinking long term, which has landed you this prestigious internship. If you’re anything but a business major, you’re likely staying local. Unless you get with an up and coming non-profit based out of New York, then you move out, live in a van, and share a community garden with everyone else since it’s unpaid. If you’re a business major, you’ve gone through a vigorous vetting process to get there (unless your dad knows people). Now, with your overly-tight suit, faded haircut, and skinny ankles, you’re ready to move to a foreign land (sometimes as far as Phoenix or Dallas) and running endless excel formulas and cleaning out companies’ databases (aka grunt work). Hopefully you get a job out of it. If not, you can at least do sales until you hit your 30’s while you think about your next step.
Going Nowhere
This isn’t to say you’re not ambitious, but perhaps none of these circumstances apply to you. Either you don’t fit the summer sales mold, you’re not far enough in school to do an internship, or your parents won’t pay for another study abroad. This leaves you in the exact same spot you’ve been for the last year. But you need to show all your traveling friends that you can have a good time too. One popular past time is slacklining – because nothing says daredevil like walking a foot-and-a-half above a grassy hill. Hammocking is another enjoyable past time. Set up a hammock and take a nap until a like-minded person passes by and asks inquisitively “You hammock too?” They grab their hammock, then you are both hammocking. When you ask someone to take a picture of you hammocking so you can Instagram it, make sure your instafriends don’t recognize the hammock is set up in your front yard. They’ll think you’re trying too hard. It shouldn’t be too difficult to come up with fun summer ideas: house parties, bonfires, mocktails, card games, Taco Tuesday, etc. Just don’t get too carried away with ideas:
It’s not riding an elephant though . . .
*As a disclaimer, I have been a participant of some sort in all these areas . . . which means I can make fun of them.
