By Amanda Gonzalez
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Valencia’s West Campus celebrated spring break with the Spring Fling event held on the SSB Patio March 3. Students joined in for free pictures, food and games and talked about their plans to go out of town for spring break.
Upon signing in at the red table located at the side of building 3, students were given a checklist with the event’s activities listed. Among the most popular games were Bottle Stand-Up and Stop-Loss.
The object of Bottle Stand-Up was to use a pole with a string and hollow circle on the end of it to successfully stand up one of the six wine bottles that was tipped over. The activity helped to raise awareness of how impaired vision becomes while drunk by having players wear drunk buster goggles. Most students were not able to stand any of the bottles up successfully.
Robert Trigili, a student at Valencia, stood aside and watched so that he could get an idea of what needed to be done. Even after watching before playing, he admitted that the task was difficult. “I almost had it,” said Trigili.
Murlande Cajuste, who was the first to stand one of the bottles up, also agreed that it was not easy.
Stop-Loss also had scenarios which simulated being drunk, but in different way than Bottle Stand-Up. It involved a car with its windshield covered by a blanket. Students got into the car and put on goggles, which allowed them to see a video game-like road ahead of them. While students “drove,” different scenarios came up.
Ashley Nicosia was changing scenarios from a laptop right outside the car. Nicosia would hand drivers a cell phone and send a text message from the laptop, at which point the driver would look at the cell phone and become distracted. Nicosia also explained to the drivers what was going on and had them step out of the vehicle and to the side once they had crashed.
Storn Olson took over once Nicosia was finished with the driver. Olson gave students information about drunk driving and texting while driving, as well as the consequences of both. Olson also informed that 6,000 people died from text messaging while driving in 2008.
Jessica Lee, a student at Valencia, described the experience as scary. “I hit like 2 people,” said Lee. “He showed me the consequences and you could end up in jail for life for drunk driving,” said Lee of the information that Olson had given her.
Nicosia and Olson are representatives of Unite International. More on UI can be found at http://www.dwiprevention.org.
For the students who weren’t going anywhere for spring break, there was a picture booth. To simulate travels, students’ pictures were taken on a green screen then uploaded digitally into a laptop, and placed either at the beach or at a carnival. Pictures were free for all faculty, staff, and students. Coyote Productions was the company behind the pictures, whose website can be found at http://www.coyotewebsite.com.
Those students who were planning a getaway seemed to be excited about it.
“I can’t wait to get out of town,” said Ashley Fernandez. “I’m going to spend a few days at Vero Beach with friends.”
Amanda Trigili was also excited. “Oh I can’t wait. I’m going to Miami,” said Trigili.
