Ignorance is bliss.

Friday marks Reading Day – to overstressed students, the equivalent of every religious holiday, Super Bowl, World Series and Nicholas Cage movie release.

This long-awaited day, set aside by NIU to provide students the invaluable opportunity to study for their finals, will, if anything, resonate into one resounding message echoing across the plains of DeKalb: “I’m having a party, and Jose Cuervo’s invited.”

Granted, not every NIU student uses Reading Day as a means to damage their liver. Thousands of students will sleep in, hundreds will head home and three or four will study for finals.

Reading Day is a novel concept. After several months of excruciatingly long papers and countless hours invested in challenging tests, students deserve a day off before what will be, for many, the most stressful seven-day period of this semester.

NIU is fully justified in providing students a day off, and should be commended for doing so.

But let’s not call the day something it’s not.

The university is remiss to believe the majority of students are actually going to use Friday to study for finals, as opposed to any of the other temptations that may or may not prove detrimental to one’s academic career.

There’s no reason to complain about having a day off. However, why is NIU providing it in the spring semester, when the desire to bask in the unfamiliar sunlight is so overwhelming, and not in the fall semester, when Old Man Winter could actually talk students into staying inside and studying?

Students deserve a free day before finals week and, however students may choose to use it, they should thank the university for providing it.

However, at the same time, the university might as well stop pretending that Reading Day lives up to its name.