It’s 3 a.m., and yet again, I’m the only one awake.

I gaze from my Henle Village apartment onto the Leavey Center; some lights are still on, but other than my colleagues still working at THE HOYA office and a few revelers straggling back from one last party, not much is happening at this hour.

The small gray board in the corner of Martha Swanson’s office is nearly full, littered with faded Final Four buttons, ticket stubs from various Georgetown events and countless nametags. Lanyards of staff admission badges from this fall’s taping of “Hardball” and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s speech hang in bunches on the side of the board, a stark contrast to the colorful Mardi Gras beads from a past Senior Class Committee event.

A shelf beside the bulletin board contains even more mementos, and the office walls are lined with framed photo collages of students from years past.

While the snow melts in the District and many Hoyas head to tropical destinations, those who still crave one more week of winter should consider spending spring break in New England. In Vermont, the heaviest snowfall often comes in early March, and the state's plethora of winter activities makes it an ideal destination for a road trip.

A day's drive from Washington, D.C., Vermont retains an isolated, natural feel, and this adds to its charm. Aside from its golden Capital Dome, Vermont's capital Montpelier, is barely indistinguishable from the small farm towns around it. Many highways in Vermont are little more than winding two-lane roads, and there's always a scenic route.

Global warming may have caused Georgetown to forget that winter existed with that string of 70-degree days, but the snow has fallen and proven that winter can’t be kept away for long. With the advent of winter, the District offers a bounty of cold weather activities for all, whether you adore the season or the mere sight of snow makes you shiver.

Glide the Night Away

A winter in Washington, D.C., wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the skating rink at the National Gallery of Art’s Sculpture Garden. This small yet beautiful outdoor rink brings out the romance of the season, as skaters glide around gracefully in the shadows of modern sculptures and the National Mall.

There is a kind of ignorance which causes people to act on glaringly inaccurate and often racist or bigoted assumptions, perpetuating hate without even bothering to consider other perspectives.

The steep descent on the Dupont Circle escalator is almost a rite of passage for college students in Washington, D.C. From there, everyone’s taken the Red line, whether to Farragut North for an internship or to Union Station for a trip home.

But few have ventured all the way to Wheaton, Md., the Red line’s penultimate northeastern stop — home to shopping venues characteristic of urban sprawl and chock-full of useful merchandise that’s rarely as available, or affordable, at malls inside the District.

A Welcome Change of Pace

African politics take to the stage this weekend with the world premiere of Sigui Suiguila Siguiya at the Gonda Theatre. In a unique collaborative performance that could only happen at an internationally focused place like Georgetown, students and professors joined West African musicians from D.C. to put on a play written by French Professor Amadou Kone and directed by French Professor Roger Bensky.

Welcome, students, to the resume auction.

Here’s your chance to buy the perfect resume, customized to land you the best job you can imagine upon graduation. The bidding starts at $100 per line. Do I hear $110?

Some students would scoff at the idea that one could simply buy items for their resume. To others, it may seem wishful thinking — inviting, but unlikely.

Growing up in coastal Massachusetts, Sarah Laputz (COL ’07) has always been drawn to the sea.

So she dove right in when her environmental studies professor Tim Beach suggested that she study marine biology at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia in spring 2006.

“You can’t really [study marine biology] that much at Georgetown, especially if you want to know the science of it,” she said.

Georgetown offers several approved study abroad programs to Australia, but since James Cook’s study abroad program is not an official Georgetown program, Laputz applied to go there with the independent status, or IC, offered by the Office of International Programs.

Whether through a festival like this weekend’s D.C. A Cappella Fest, or through chance encounters with one of campus’ four a cappella groups performing outside the library or at Leo’s, few Hoyas leave the Hilltop without having some exposure to the sounds and spirit of a cappella music.