Byline: Jamie Reid
Mar. 11--With spring break here, Lamar University freshmen are using the class-free week to work, play and sleep.
Four freshmen, who agreed to be followed by The Enterprise for the spring and fall semesters, said they don't have solid plans for the week, yet expect to keep busy by laboring extra hours at jobs, spending time with high school friends and, perhaps, traveling out of town for water park adventures.
'I just need a break,' said Garrett McLeod, an 18-year-old communications major and honor student who lives in the Cardinal Village dormitory.
McLeod likely will divide his time between his dorm room, his parents' home in Nederland and his girlfriend's home in Liberty.
(He officially started dating Kayla, another Lamar honors student, two weeks ago when the couple went to Port Arthur Mardi Gras together.)
'I don't have any specific plans,' said McLeod, who wants to golf with friends and family several times during the week.
He's just excited to take a breather from a busy schedule of balancing classes, organizations and friends.
Cierra Doucette, a 19-year-old art major, also isn't quite sure what the week has in store, but would like to go to Austin for the annual SXSW music festival with high school friends.
'I might go if Dashboard (Confessional) is there,' she said of her favorite indie rock band. 'Last year my friend got in for $15.'
(The band, led by singer-songwriter Chris Carrabba of Florida, is not listed as playing on the SXSW Web site.)
So, more likely, Doucette, who is paying her way through college, will stay in Southeast Texas to pick up extra hours at work. She probably will take advantage of spring break by picking up shifts from out-of-town coworkers. Doucette, who lives with her grandmother in China, works in childcare at Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital's W.P. Hebert Health and Fitness Center.
Another freshman, 19-year-old Ebony Williams, also will work during her week off. Williams, who recently changed her major from kinesiology to mass communications, will spend the first part of the week in the Academy shoe department, a position this sneaker-lover calls 'the perfect job for me.'
Then, the Ozen High School graduate will take off next weekend so she can visit her best friend, Jasmine Joseph, in Houston.
The teens will stay in Joseph's University of Houston dormitory and might attend the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, watch a step show or play games at Dave & Buster's, a restaurant with arcade games for adults.
'It's Houston,' said Williams, who plans to transfer to Texas Southern University in Houston in the fall. 'There's never a dull moment.'
Williams, who lives at home in Beaumont with her mother and maternal grandmother, might also take a day trip to Wasserfest, a year-round water park in Galveston.
Ritchie Acosta, an 18-year-old engineering and honors student, also hopes to get wet this week -- but in New Braunfels. He hopes to make the trek to Central Texas with about five high school friends, both men and women he hasn't seen in months.
When not with friends, Acosta expects to make several trips to local malls with his two younger sisters and perhaps celebrate his March 25 birthday early at a Houston restaurant.
This week, he doesn't want to study for three tests (in engineering economics, calculus and linear algebra) that he has the Monday and Tuesday back from break. So, he studied hard last week to prepare.
'Spring break is not the time to study,' said Acosta, who most looks forward to seeing his mother.
'I hate to admit it but, yeah, I'm homesick,' said Acosta, who can't easily leave his Cardinal Village dormitory because he doesn't own a car. 'I want to leave as soon as possible.'
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