I was sitting in a plaza in Madrid, looking at a man painted completely white while he mimed… I was sitting in a plaza in Madrid, looking at a man painted completely white while he mimed dropping a coin into his hat, when I realized that I was happy.

Happy might be quite an ambiguous term. There’s beating-Sudoku-on-the-bus happy and then there’s Howard-Dean-ruining-his-political-career happy, but I think that I was somewhere more toward the-first-time-I-heard-T-Pain happy. Sitting in Spain — eating gelato and not having a care in the world — I was what Vincent Van Gogh would cut off his ear for.

It might be arrogant to spend an entire paragraph talking about how happy I am in Spain. I realize that most people are not going to Europe anytime soon and that a lot of Spaniards are not all that happy — talking to you, Picasso in the blue period — but I don’t want anybody to jump to conclusions. The paella and the nightlife make Spain one of the most exciting — and not to mention most beautiful — countries in the world. And ladies,  don’t forget Fernando Torres. Spain is a must-see for anyone traveling abroad, but it wasn’t just the tapas and accents that made me feel this way.

Replaying that moment in my head like a melody from Iyaz, I realized what so many of my Pittsburgh friends need and deserve. It hit me like a Chris Brown roadtrip — I felt like I was a little slow for not realizing it before. What was I missing in Pittsburgh for all of these years? What is the difference between Spanish smiles and Pittsburgh frowns? It’s the sun!

OK, say it’s dumb. Say it’s obvious. Mock away. Who writes a column about the sun? And who cares if it’s always sunny? Do I really want to live in Philadelphia? I don’t want to rub the fact that I went somewhere sunny in the face of all of my Pittsburgh friends. I don’t want to remind myself that London, where I’m spending the semester, is even less sunny than Pittsburgh.

So apparently, we can’t control the sun too much. I mean this whole global warming thing isn’t working out too well right now and the whole “Jersey Shore” self-tanner thing just makes the whole world look like it has hepatitis. Call off the march to restore sunlight, but I really hate this cold-and-dark thing. But what do we do without it?

I hope that you have seen that commercial that plays during every televised Pitt sporting event. It shows Pitt by the numbers and talks about how we’ve raised a ton of money and that we’ve had some Rhodes Scholars, and then it says some more things that I missed because I no longer watch commercials — seriously, it’s called TiVo. Anyway, there’s this one part when it talks about Pitt students being rated as happy students.

Are we really a home to happy students, though? Maybe. Considering that we don’t have to live in West Virginia, I’m starting to see why Pitt students seem to rate so high on the happy scale.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t get some bragging pride when I talk about my academics at Pitt. I’m not saying that we’re down at Penn State level or anything, but I don’t feel like I’m going to get the “Daayumm, you go there!?” that those Ivy kids seem to get. When I tell people that I go to Pitt, I usually get asked about DeJuan Blair or Troy Polamalu’s hair.

Come to think of it, I don’t really care how many Rhodes Scholars Pitt has. I don’t really care if our average SAT score has gone up. I do care that we are happy. I care that our students have found a way to say “screw it” to the sun and somehow keep their spirits up. College is stressful. I know that professional acting is stressful too, Lindsay Lohan — but let’s be real. Between finals, mid-terms, dorm life, landlords, all-nighters, professors who cannot be serious, GPAs, friends, balancing parties and school, Greek life, sports, friends and relationships, who the hell has time to be happy?

Apparently Pitt students do — and I couldn’t be more proud of that. Not too long ago I saw possibly hundreds of people all wearing a shirt to support victims of depression. I couldn’t help but think about how amazing it is that people care so much here. I loved my vacation. I love studying abroad, but I miss that community that we should all take pride in. Pitt students don’t need the sun! And once the spring officially comes, we’ll be taking advantage of the weather like an open bar at a wedding. It’s not too cheesy to acknowledge it, and it’s not too cheesy to waste away the day and relax a little. And if that doesn’t work, of course — you could always go to Spain.

Write Andrew at [email protected].