All this talk of snow makes me want to get back to Fayetteville, to get bback into the thick of things, and to go back to studying as I always have done. Of course, we run into a paradox. Snow does not equal gtting around, studying etc., but it does equal fun and weather, two things I am quite interested in. It's one thing to look at a computer screen and analyze numbers, probabilities, snow depths. It's another thing to get out in it, feel the cold fluffy white stuff underfoot. It's one thing to talk about distance education, listening to tapes and doing assignments. It's another to actually be in class, asking questions, talking with friends and enjoying the stress of university and college life. I guess I'm contradicting myself here, contradicting what many of you might think to be dry, clean cut things. "school sucks" many say. "I hate working, hate all the assignments, they stress me out." "What about that quiz I have to study for tomorrow, arg too much information to study."

Well, when you have total isolation from everything school/university related, you're trapped in a world of computer screens and virtual avatars, a virtual university. I don't know how people can go to all those virtual universities and get degrees, have no idea how they can spend two or three years and get a degree because until you realize it and have it taken away from you, you don't realize how much you miss with university life. Of course, I've said the things I've quoted before, but being at home has made me realize how much I appreciated life as it was and how a little change can blossom into something so big, almost like a little chance of snow can blossom into a blizzard in a matter of hours. How something that, when viewed from a distance looks so pretty yet when you're in the thick of things driving around in the snow, experiencing it, it appears as such an annoyance. Many are even killed in something that looks so pretty. So it is with college with university, many are killed at university having fun stressing out, partying. It seems so surreal from afar though not being there, seems so distant yet so close I could touch it now. Soon I'll have that oportunity again, have the oportunity to be in the thick of things, to trudge through the snow drifts of life and really experience things. I sure hit a huge drift on a warm January afternoon as I walked back from class. There's always life around that drift though, always things to look forward. Summer always melts snow too, and just think how pretty summer looks from afar too. I still can't figure out which is prettier, a snow covered adventure or a rolling green of summer. Who knows. I'll be back though, gotta start climbing those drifts so I can come back. We all have our drifts don't we.