As a California surfer you’ll likely find yourself going stark raving mad in the coming months.

At some dreadful point this quarter the waves will start to trickle to a gradual calm until we’ve reached the summer lull, when swells large enough to generate decent surf are a rarity. Don’t get me wrong — we’ll get the occasional pulse and perhaps score a few good weeks this quarter, but things probably won’t improve much till fall fills the horizon with lines of rolling blue hills.

Just as a cadaver begins to decompose minutes out of formaldehyde, so too does life begin to defray once you’re out of the ocean. Your surf muscles atrophy, your neck tan resides and your boards fuse together in the trunk of your car with surf wax — splooging aromatic Sticky Bumps and Sex Wax all over the upholstery.

Sure, last week was pretty epic (I surfed a solid head-high sesh at ‘Con with only about six other dudes), but it’s still about time to plan getting the hell out of California for the summer. And for the next twelve weeks, your mission is to surf your brains out at any opportunity.

Be ready to go at the slightest hyped-up mention of a tsunami slipping in between the Channel Islands, or the tiniest hint of lucky wind swell. And if you really want to go for it, take a lesson from Superman and wear your wetsuit underneath your clothes for the rest of the term.

Unfortunately, the surf yesterday was a bust, which is why X-ray vision would really come in handy at the moment:

I’m sitting in my first section of the quarter (who makes their students go to section on the first week for chrissake?) wishing that I could see through the HSSB walls to the ocean. The surf’s dribbly at best — I watched from my balcony all morning — but surfing even the most meager of sets would beat the hell out of going to class at the beginning of Spring Quarter.

In fact, if the swell happens to pick up since I write this column and we’re blessed with good surf today, you should probably crumple your Nexus RIGHT NOW, throw it at the front of lecture and start stripping your clothes off as you sprint towards the ocean.

Not inspired? Yeah, the Santa Barbara slop can be a bit of downer for your surf-boner, which leads me back to my main point — go on a surf trip this summer. And don’t give me any complaints about the cost, your plans to work as a camp counselor or some other shwag. Odds are a good number of you fools are willing to pay upwards of $300 bucks for three days of music at Coachella, so why not reassess your plans and turn that $300 bucks into roundtrip tickets to Central America?

 

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