The past week has been what Texans would refer to as a "winter" "wonderland." Yes, the last 5 days or so represented the first and last days of winter around here. In fact, the temperature even went down to 31 degrees Fahrenheit! That's -0.5 Centigrade! OH MY GOD. So, naturally, they had to close the University on the first two days of class. I mean, it just makes sense. As some of you may realize, the human body is made mostly of water, and water FREEZES at 32 degrees!!! THAT MEANS THAT IF I WERE TO STEP OUTSIDE, I WOULD TURN INTO ICE AND DIE!!!!!!

In addition to declaring all outdoors unsuitable for human existence, the city had the bright idea of attempting to increase the frictional constant of potentially icy roads. It would seem that someone read on the back of a cereal box somewhere that in the more northerly-regions of what is known as "Not Texas," traction can be acquired by depositing a thin layer of coarse sand/gravel. However, as Texas is made out of clay and boulders, this substance is largely unavailable. So, they did the next best thing: dumping giant piles of gooey mud all over the place. Mud is LIKE gravel, right? I mean its all just dirt, right? And MORE of it would obviously give MORE traction, so they piled it up in seemingly random places in so thick a layer as to leave 2 foot high drifts at the sides of the road. In addition to that, whenever things start to dry out, the mud dries up and creates a thick, salmon-colored fog of microscopic dirt-particles and air-born rocks.

On-campus, it would seem a similar technique was used on the sidewalks. Yesterday, I was walking to class, and along the way, I encountered three random mounds of mud sitting in the middle of the walk. It was as if half-crazed, wheelbarrow-pushing men were scurrying around campus looking for the first signs of ice, and then digging holes and depositing half a ton of whatever came out onto the ice patch before it could spread its anti-American, freeze-loving ideals to its gullible, liquid comrades.