April is a weird month weather-wise, especially here in the midwest. One day can bring sunshine, the next can bring overcast clouds and rain. Not only is the weather uninspiring, but it can also feel like there aren’t really any holidays to counterbalance this unpredictable month — with an exception of April Fool’s Day. However, there just so happens to be a plethora of fun and somewhat unconventional holidays that only the April fool wouldn’t celebrate.
Do you love birds? If so, April 8 will be joyous because it’s Draw a Picture of a Bird Day. It’s a day to break out the art supplies and immortalize your love for avians in art. It sounds like a spectacular way to boost one’s self esteem. Another beautiful aspect to the holiday is the sheer number of birds that exist. Your muse can be anything from a common sparrow, to an ostrich. There’s no rule saying that the bird you draw has to be realistic, you can even make up a bird if you want.
Some may think April 15 is one of the unluckiest days of the year, as it’s the day Abraham Lincoln died, the Titanic sank and the day taxes are due. April 15 is actually known as That Sucks Day and it’s probably the most aptly named holiday out there. A good way to “celebrate” That Sucks Day is to accept that things will, in fact, suck on this day. I mean, do you honestly think a day that killed Abraham Lincoln, 1,502 ship passengers and the wealth in our wallets is going to quit while it’s ahead?
With April 17, comes the most eloquent of holiday names: Blah Blah Blah Day. Fortunately, it is a day that has absolutely nothing to do with the pop singer, Ke$ha. You may be surprised to learn that Blah Blah Blah Day is actually a day devoted to personal productivity. It’s a day to go out and do things that someone has been nagging you to do. Is someone bugging you to get a job? Then go get a job. Do your parents keep asking you to clean your room? Go clean your room.
Make it your mission for the day to tackle all the things that people have been pestering you to do with the beautiful knowledge that you can resume your previous behavior for the other 364 days of the year.
April 25 is Red Hat Society Day and it has an awesome concept. For those who don’t know, the Red Hat Society is a group of women over the age of 50 that dress in red hats and purple outfits and go out as a group and engage in social activities. The group’s purpose is to celebrate age instead of being ashamed or debilitated by it. It was started when the club’s founder, Sue Ellen Cooper and a group of her friends, dressed in matching outfits and met for tea on April 25, 1998.
April 26 will probably be very popular with many women, as it’s Hug an Australian Day. This is a delightfully self-explanatory holiday where one simply must hug an Australian — hug as many Aussies as possible for that matter. If Heath Ledger were still alive, many would probably be searching for him in Australia now in preparation for this lovely holiday. However, if someone doesn’t have an Australian friend or does but doesn’t feel like hugging them, a dinner at Outback Steakhouse would probably still count as celebrating the holiday.
April is the last full month of spring semester and getting into the holiday spirit is the perfect way to help the weeks pass by even faster.
If you know of any other holidays worth celebrating, email us at [email protected] Happy celebrating!




How do you sleep at night?
Let me ask you a question. How do you people sleep at night?
I’m serious — and not just at night. More and more, I’m noticing students sleeping at school… during the day! Some of you guys seem able to fall asleep anywhere: in the Library, in the Building 13 Atrium, waiting for academic advisors in Building 11 and pretty much anywhere else there are chairs on campus.
So, how do you do it? What’s the secret?
I’ve suffered from long nights, maybe mild insomnia, for most of my life. I need at least 18 hours of activity under my belt before I even begin to feel that I should turn in. Even after I climb into bed, I still have another three hours ahead of me before I (might) pass out.
I spend most of my schooldays punching myself in the head, trying to jumpstart my brain before an exam or speech. But the second I lay my head down on the pillow that night, my mind is in full-swing and turns into a Ringling Brothers cirucs of random thoughts.
Right now, I’m averaging about three hours of sleep a night. And I’ve tried everything — reading in bed, watching TV, keeping a cool bedroom and avoiding late-night food and caffeine. Nothing helps.
I spend most of my goofing around on the “weird side of the Internet,” getting caught up in YouTube’s suggested videos, clicking deeper and deeper into Wikipedia (did you know that Persepolis is 43 miles northeast of Shiraz in the Fars Province?) and to top it all off, I’ve recently become a Redditor.
I’m midway through three books (not including textbooks), made my way through entire seasons of television shows, memorized dialogue from recently released movies and have begun noticing patterns on my iPod’s shuffle setting.
I’ve started having a couple beers before bed and that helps a little, but that’s not a healthy, long-term solution.
I go to school full-time, I work two jobs and I just took up skateboarding again to help stay active during the day.
And this brings me back to you guys snoozing around campus — what are you doing all day long to burn so much energy? How many credit hours are you taking? Do you jog to school or something?
Or is it simply that you have a long break between classes, you’ve decided to stay on campus and you’re bored to tears.
I don’t know how you do it and I’m jealous. I’ve only dozed off once at school and that was after roughly 48 hours of no sleep.
I believe this is what the online masses refer to as “first world problems.” There’s even a popular meme of the same title. A good example of this might be a distraught woman boohooing, “my diamond earrings keep scratching my iPhone.”
It’s not that I can’t fall asleep because bombs are exploding by my home near the Gaza Strip, or because I’m an infected child born into an epidemic of over 5,600,000 fellow HIV-positive South Africans or because my grandmother is within range of a North Korean Taepodong-2 ballistic missile.
I don’t lie awake at night with hunger pains or wonder how I’m going to pay the heating bill.
There’s a haunting Pulitzer-winning photograph by Kevin Carter, who has since committed suicide, of a starving, collapsed Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture. That photo depicts a real problem.
This is nothing. This is boredom.
Of course, true insomnia isn’t a pretend problem for the privileged by any means. Sleep disorders are very real, painful medical conditions that, according to The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, affects 40 percent of Americans.
But in my case, I don’t think this is a neurological disorder. I think this is dispassion.
Is that fair? Is it fair to be so lazy and comfortable in my life that I can’t find enough to do to make myself tired by the end of the day?
I shouldn’t be content as just another American, waiting around for the return of the McRib.
I should be taking advantage of how fortunate I am to be this free, with this much time and opportunity on my hands.
If I’m not tired at the end of the day, then maybe I haven’t done enough with my day.
I could get up with the sun and leap out of bed. I could skip the “Breaking Bad” marathon and volunteer somewhere. I could learn to play a musical instrument. I could learn a second language. I could read not to fall asleep, but to be awoken — I could do anything I wanted with my day.
I should wake up and make myself tired. I should give every ounce of energy to everything I do, everyday.
I shouldn’t let that opportunity slip away to apathy.
I should feel bad about my laziness and my tendency to waste entire days. And maybe, deep down, I do. Maybe remedying this and truly seizing each day will yield a solution: a clear conscious.