Azzara: Don’t let ‘Pittsburghitits’ stifle spring fun

Spring break has been over for a week now, and whether you spent it vacationing in an exotic… Spring break has been over for a week now, and whether you spent it vacationing in an exotic location or simply went home to spend time with your friends and family, after a full week off from classes, I’m betting you’re less than thrilled to be back in good old Pittsburgh. In fact, upon my return to Pitt after break, I noticed a distinct sense of gloom in the air, even as students reunited with friends and settled back into their dorms, houses and apartments.

You might be tempted to blame it on the clouds and rain that overtook the city on the Sunday before classes started back up, but the truth is that most of us are painfully reluctant to get back into routine after a week of relaxation.

In a clear demonstration of this fact, a friend of mine recently described to me the symptoms of senioritis that had come over him immediately following spring break. He began to feel indifferent toward schoolwork and overly concerned with warm weather.

Many of us can probably relate to his feelings, and given that my friend is only a sophomore, perhaps a more appropriate term for his ailment would be “Pittsburghitis” — a condition that afflicts students upon their return to this city after spring break, preventing them from being as studious as they should be. But allow me to caution you against this crippling disorder.

In order to learn how to fight Pittsburghitis, we must first understand how it spreads. Spring break is perfectly situated to cause the disease, since it occurs almost immediately after midterm exams for most students. I had five exams in the last few weeks before spring break, so I was more than ready to forget my concerns about school and simply relax for an entire week, as I’m sure we all were. The only problem is that once that week was over and once we had a taste of the freedom, leisure time and summer-like weather — granted, for some — we simply weren’t ready to continue with the other responsibilities that go along with school. This sequence precisely how one becomes susceptible to Pittsburghitis.

Another major symptom of Pittsburghitis is the false belief that, upon returning after spring break, it is actually spring in Pittsburgh. Despite the fact that there was snow on the ground when they left, many people mistakenly expected that Pittsburgh would be sunny and warm when they returned. This year we’ve been fairly fortunate as far as returning weather, but don’t get too used to it.

The condition is quite easy to diagnose. If you’ve already started wearing flip-flops, shorts and tank tops, you could have Pittsburghitis. And if instead of taking notes on your laptop in class, you’ve begun to spend the entire time refreshing the page on weather.com in hopes of it forecasting warmth and sunshine for the next 10 days, you could be infected.

Pittsburghitis might not seem like that big of a deal, but it is an epidemic that needs to be stopped. The trouble is that most of us are so concerned with the promise of nice weather that we neglect our schoolwork in the weeks following spring break. And here’s the key problem with Pittsburghitis.

Thinking back to last year, I feel it pertinent to remind everyone that it did not start getting warm, sunny and generally spring-like in Pittsburgh until around mid-April, within the last few weeks of the semester. Even if we are teased by a handful of unseasonably warm days in the coming weeks, expecting summer-like weather in March is far too hopeful for a city with ravaging snowstorms in our not-so distant memory.

My advice to those beset with Pittsburghitis is to consider the following: During those last few weeks of the semester, when bikini-clad girls are laying out on the Soldiers & Sailors lawn, couples are getting ice cream at Dave & Andy’s and shirtless boys are throwing around footballs at Schenley Plaza, where will you be?

Unless you get focused on school now and get over your Pittsburghitis, you’ll be stuck inside, struggling to catch up on your work in time for finals. If the thought of entering finals week with zero pages read and not even a thesis planned for that final paper doesn’t scare you, this disorder might be more serious than I thought.

E-mail Katie at kna6@pitt.edu.