Proper American Spring Break (Before COVID-19)

I wrote the following blog post almost two year ago (before the pandemic) & decided to re-post it because it's crazy to see how much life has changed since then:

"This week I decided to redo an activity my college professor assigned a couple of weeks ago.

In the 4th week of school, Art 110 students were asked to act as if they had their own television series based on their own lives and try to slightly dramatize certain mundane actions to entertain the pretend viewers.

I felt like this week would be the perfect week to replicate this activity because I was planning on going to Lake Havasu with my friends from England for a, “Proper American Spring Break. ”

So here are some highlights from the so-called "Sophie Show" ~ Spring Breakers Episode

• Before we arrived in Lake Havasu we made a pit stop at my best friend’s home, to spend the night. To thank her parents for generously allowing our group of friends to stay at their lovely home, I woke up extremely early; walked to the store, and bought food to cook breakfast. When her parents woke up, I had a large platter of bacon, eggs and pancakes awaiting them.
  I then learned that her parents were orthodox Jews and for Religious reasons, could not eat bacon.
  Tv show moment summary: accidently cooked pork in an orthodox jew household right before passover.

• After spending a couple days in Havasu, our group of friends decided to rent a boat and explore the lake. We stumbled upon some cliffs. After learning that occasionally people leap off the cliffs into the water, I decided that diving off the cliff into the beautiful water would be the perfect Sophie Show moment. It was an amazing experience and I’m so glad I pushed myself to do it.
  Tv show moment: jumped off cliff into beautiful water 2 stories down.

• The last night at Havasu, our friend group decided to do something particularly out of our character; we snuck into a spring break event that an enormous amount of college students pay a ton of money to attend. It was down the street from our hotel, and we jokingly went down to the venue to see if we could get it. As fate would have it, as soon as we walked up to the prison like gate to the event, the security guard walked away to talk to someone. We quickly ran into the crowd. After enjoying the concert for about an hour, my friend and I were selected to go into the VIP section to talk to the band after the concert. Not only were we invited to the VIP section backstage, we were also asked to dance on stage. Normally, I would of run away from an opportunity like that, but since I was participating in the Sophie Show, I decided I wouldn’t want to disappoint my pretend viewers, and also it would be a great story to tell later on. So we danced on stage until after the concert and got to meet up with the band. It was one of the most amazing nights of my life
  TV show moment summary: snuck into concert, danced on stage, talked to band.

*Lastly when we were heading home, one of our tires blew out in the middle of Arizona’s giant desert in the middle of the night. While waiting for triple A, we decided to make the best out of our time by eating the remainder of our junk food and watching a movie on a friends laptop under the stars (while also ignoring the fact that our situation was awfully similar to the beginning of the famous horror movie, The Hills Have Eyes)
TV show moment summary: survived getting stranded in the desert, while also having a pretty amazing time.

*My spring break was pretty amazing, especially because I was striving to appease my fake “viewers”. Pretending to have my own tv show, made me realize that taking risks and doing strange and unexpected things can lead to unforgettable memories and a hell of a good time.

This won’t be the end to the Sophie Show." - Me 2019

[..... Ironically, I'm pretty sure it was the end of the Sophie Show. I'm not sure that a 'Proper American Spring Break' is in the cards anymore in this strange pandemic reality we currently live in.]