Credit: Jason Hall

For the next nine days, Kent State students will leave behind the monotony of school and find ways to keep themselves busy during spring recess. Some will spend break working, but many will travel, using their time to see new sights and catch up on their relationships with people close to them.

Family, friends…

For five years running, freshman nursing major Julie Cappuzzello and her family have spent every spring break in a quiet, secluded spot outside of Jacksonville, Fla.

“It was just one of those things where we found it and really liked it,” she said. “It’s kind of an undeveloped area of Florida.”

This year the family will be joined by Katlyn Bair, Cappuzzello’s roommate and freshman nursing major.

“I’m excited,” Bair said. “I haven’t been to Florida in, like, three years.”

Bair and Cappuzzello agreed that having time away from classes to spend with family and friends is important.

Freshman visual communication design major Amanda Kis will be heading up to Canada for a weekend of partying with about 12 of her close friends, but she said she is making sure to leave time for family, too.

“My grandma on my mom’s side recently passed away, so it makes me want to spend a lot of time with my dad’s parents,” Kis said.

Kis plans to spend most of her break back home, spending time with her grandparents and shopping with her younger sister who “idolizes” her. She also plans on treating her older brother to a night out.

“My brother just got home from Iraq, so I told him I’d take him to the bars on my tab,” she said.

…and loved ones

Most students probably would not be willing to travel all the way across the country to hang out with an ex, but that is exactly what freshman advertising major Chris Patrick plans to do.

Patrick will be spending the week with a former flame hiking, mountain biking and visiting the Colorado hot springs.

“We were dating for two years before we broke up,” Patrick said.

He said the two of them split when she left to go to school at Colorado State University, but they remain intimate when they see each other.

“When we’re together, we’re basically together,” Patrick said. “It’s back and forth and it kind of bothers me, but it’s hard to turn off some magic love switch. I still care about her.”

Other couples have planned vacations together.

Andy Vanek, sophomore integrated mathematics major, and Heather Elliot, freshman art education major, will travel several hours in a car to watch more cars.

Elliot and Vanek, who have been dating for more than two years, are heading to Bristol, Tenn., to watch a NASCAR race.

Elliot bought Vanek tickets in celebration of his birthday Sunday.

Vanek said between the two of them he is the racing fan, but he is in the process of “converting” Elliot.

Contact features reporter William Schertz at [email protected].