Happy late Thanksgiving, readers! I hope you've all enjoyed your short break from classes before, unfortunately, the crunch of finals sets in. Today I'm going to be complaining about something very trite, yet close to home. My topic this week is The Hill.
By the hill, I of course mean this campus. And no, readers, I'm not taking this time to complain about everyone who resides here — I'm about to complain about the physical hill itself. Don't get me wrong: I love walking, I love running, I love exercise! I spent the entire summer strength training — for no reason other than personal health — and I love to sneak in an extra workout whenever I can. But this whole hill thing gets old sometimes, especially in the snow and rain — or after an intense workout when my legs are so sore I can barely walk on a level surface, never mind up a steep incline.
I'll discuss a few solutions to this problem. One would be to actually cancel classes when it's really snowing, for the safety of everyone involved. If I can't even walk up the hill without slipping and nearly landing in a snowdrift, I doubt my professor is having an easier time navigating the roads. Yes, missing class sets everyone back a day, but let's be real here: How many people are actually paying attention during class when it's snowing outside, anyway?
Another solution, one which my roommate still continues to champion, is the creation of a ski lift that would take students up and down the hill. There are some obvious drawbacks to this plan, though — what if the line to get on the lift gets too long, and students are late to class? What if the lift gets stuck halfway through its journey? What if — and this, inevitably, would be me — someone fell off? Clearly the lift has more drawbacks than redeeming qualities, but it's a nice idea. In addition, I'm pretty sure we'd be one of the only universities out there with an on−campus ski lift, which would give us ample bragging rights.
One last suggestion I'd make is, to save us all the trouble of wearing eight layers of clothing on our respective treks up− and down−hill, that Tufts turn off the heat in its buildings on days where the outside temperature is going to be 60 degrees or higher. Walking up the hill can, at times, be a workout, and I don't want to be dripping sweat all throughout class because someone decided it would be a good idea to leave the heat set to 80 when it's perfectly warm enough outside. I actually cringe to think about how much money the university spends on heating buildings that are stifling already. It's not easy, nor is it pleasant, to dress for a hill−walk in 10−degree weather and 80−degree weather simultaneously. If turning down the heat isn't going to happen, at least install coat racks in the classrooms, because we need somewhere — besides our chairs — to store our five layers of winter−weather clothes while we're in class.
All joking aside, the hill really can be annoying sometimes. I think all of us have slipped down the sidewalks after a snowstorm at least once; some of us have even lost our cell phones or iPods in snowdrifts. As amusing as this is to watch, it's markedly less amusing to be the one falling down.
So, Tufts, maybe you should think about adding that ski lift to your list of random campus "beautification" projects. Just saying. In the meantime, all you lazy campus−goers will just have to be satisfied with taking the Joey up− and down−hill.
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