Friday, Feb. 26 — the day of the snurricane. As usual, I’m up by 7 a.m. I look out the window of my second-floor house on the West Side and can’t find the staircase leading down to the sidewalk because my lawn is buried under a foot of snow. I call it a fair assumption that school would be closed. 9 a.m. — I have class at 10:50 a.m. on Fridays. Just for kicks, I figure I’ll check the Internet to make sure school is closed. To my great surprise, it says that buses start running at 9 a.m. and…

When I run, I feel like I’m doing yoga — elated in a very grounded way, eased and stressed, comfortable and frustrated. I’m thinking about all and nothing; thoughts become more like wisps of air rather than concrete conceptions. When I run away, I come back. I used to hate running … really hate it. Running around the block would not only be exhausting, but nauseatingly boring. When my mother pushed me outside to go for a run, I would ‘round the corner and stroll for as long as I thought a run should last, then run the half block…

You may have heard something about “Climate Action Plans.” Binghamton University recently released a CAP, and the city of Binghamton is currently drafting one, along with the state of New York. But what exactly are they? Each one of these plans centers around carbon, an element that forms the skeleton of each organic molecule that makes up our bodies, the earth’s plants and the atmosphere. It is not a dangerous element, but it does follow the rule of “everything is good in moderation.” CO2 is among the group of what we now call greenhouse gases, which, despite their bad name,…

‘Tis the season to be wasteful. Consumers across the nation over are rushing to the stores to buy gadgets and trinkets and ribbons and rings. You must get something for everyone, even if that thing is fated to spend the next few years dusty on a shelf or dropped and forgotten in the crevice between the bed and the wall. It is the season where “Made in China” becomes the most widely distributed phrase in the country. Take a second this season to think your purchases through, a little beyond “shiny,” “soft” and “office gift.” Think about what it took…

It is true that college is a bubble. However, it is meant to protect us, not limit our reach, and living on campus limits one’s reach quite significantly. You never really have to leave. You have your room and food, class is never more than 10 minutes away and you even have a maid. Soon you start questioning why you would ever have to leave the nice little island built, essentially, just for you. Well, for those of you who follow this flow, you’re missing out. Binghamton is a pretty incredible place if you look into it. It has nooks…

Have you ever been at a loss for words? I’ve been having that problem a lot. My freshman year, I was able to debate anyone into a corner. Now it seems I am a rolling whoopee cushion of brain farts. Have I burned out? Or is it that by the time we’ve reached our third year in college we simply become too disconnected and dull to really understand what we’re fighting for? I don’t know which one it is, but neither one is appealing. The University is a bubble, though a bit more complex than the colorful soapy ones. It…

We speak daily of everything from broken nails and malfunctioning computers to girlfriends and not-exactly-boyfriends. Try going one day without a complaint and you will either stay quiet or be ignored, replaced by a nearby whiner who just farted in front of her boyfriend for the first time. Oh … my … god!!! The events are usually minor, but spoken in expletives and complemented with wild hand motions. Most of us (myself included) can speak with (or at) someone for hours, dissecting and over-analyzing a glitch in the normal course of our day. But because these situations are generally not…

A disclaimer: I’m a tree-hugging nature lover. So those of you reading this who are not similarly inclined may attribute my words to an idealism getting to be more pervasive among American youth. But I don’t speak for a movement. I speak for common sense. As it is, we live in a generally nonsensical world. I hope you can agree with me on that. Every internationally trading country exports the same goods they import, the World Bank’s generosity depreciates the quality of life of their beneficiaries and Paris Hilton makes about 1000 times the amount of the average Ph.D. student…