Spring has sprung! The bears are out, the robins are hard at work, and there’s a general vibrancy in the air amid warmer weather and waking flowers (even despite a few recent snows). Perhaps nowhere on campus was the excitement more apparent than around the front office last week as returning GS students were greeted with screaming jubilance on campus. As Intersession was winding down – a four-week academic soaking in which skiers diligently compressed one and half terms and the content for two classes into four weeks – their Global Studies peers began trickling in on Wednesday afternoon, all of whom have been not only out of the country but off the grid since spring break. A certain buzz began in the morning and rose to permeate throughout the building by lunchtime. Then, much like Kevin embracing his mom at the end of Home Alone, or Andy greeting Red at the end of Shawshank Redemption, or (for the younger viewers) even Iceman reunited with Maverick in the new Top Gun, voices rose, hands extended, and gleeful faces charged toward one another from across the parking lot, into the sun room, around the front entrance, and up and down the halls. It is indeed a new beginning fitting the surrounding season, as we transition into the final month of the year before graduation. The few weeks of May will fly by as students finish projects, complete exams, and reflect during a variety of celebrations. For now, they’re just plain happy to see one another. Friends separated for a spell by thousands of miles are now returned to a common home, each with plenty of stories to share with friends and faculty who have earnestly missed them and wish them many such happy returns.