Its Perfect Weather for Sailing

I went to bed at 4 this morning. At that time, you could already hear the wind whipping around the end of the building which is our wing and shrieking into the first floor vortex under our window where it was held captive by the corner of the building. Silly me, I thought it would dissipate by morning. Waking up at noon, the wind had not abated, nor was it displaying any signs of doing so. According to the internet {hooray weatherbug?} wind speeds were around 20 mph with a wind chill factor of 19 degrees gusting at 38 mph. YEAH RIGHT! That's down in Mankato, 10 miles away, down hill, away from the junction of the two rivers, and in a calmer area. On top of this hill, {sorry, you can't convice me that this is the "edge of a valley"} gusts had to be in the 60's. My baggy JNCO pants threatened to act as sails sweeping me off my feet, balancing the lift of my unzipped vest that flared out behind me like a pair of wings. Getting out of a car was fun, well, requiring a lot of energy at least. I didn't even have to close the door behind me. Not to worry, it isn't so hard to walk in wind. A slight lean will compensate for any balance inequalities. Simply beware when turning corners. That's when you will fall over! This miserable weather has made many girls fearful of walking outside and across the parking lot to the Caf. So, what do my roommate and I do? We open all the windows and watch our posters pull away from the walls, our pictures bend in half, and our plants nearly uproot. We must be weather elementals! Running shrieking in the rain, slipping, sliding and taking pictures in the cold, and inviting the wind to come inside and play, we aren't your run of the mill beings. All I have to say is: Its fun! But I wouldn't want to live a life of it. I will be like the National Guard, on call to play with the most serious of weather.

Just Get Away for a Little While?

The phrase of commercially influenced persons who begin to feel oppressed by their situation, "I need to get away from it all" causes warning signs to spring into the minds of psychiatrists and dollar signs to dance in the eyes of travel agents. Born of a generation constantly in motion and convinced of the possibility of buying one's happiness, escaping 'reality' seems to be the primary motivation in those actions of a person that deviate from the routine. This "need to get away" is also reminiscent of repression. Obviously being a modern trend, these tendencies and desires among humans bring fear to the heart of the less than casual. Will men eventually get to the point where nothing is faced up to, responsibility is taken for no situation, and diversion, vacation, and fiction are the primary pursuits of mankind? I, for one, would derive no pleasure from "having fun all the time." Yet how many do you know who would revel in a world in which the papers never had to be written, books never had to be read, alarms never had to be set for 8am, there was no drinking age, no driving age, plane tickets were free, and Margaritaville was an everyday place? Procrastination is like masturbation. In the end, you are only screwing yourself. Yeah, but its fun while it lasts. And what if it lasts forever?