Polar bears and Eskimos are under-appreciated

"Gosh. Antarctica would suck to live in," was my first thought upon stepping out of my car in Logan.

No polar bears. No Eskimos. I feel like those are the two greatest redeeming qualities of ridiculously cold places. Without polar bears or Eskimos, those nasty penguin and seal populations just flourish out of control. Then what? We've got a continent full of skinny, starving, waddling, flightless birds running around with nothing to do. Not to mention emaciated seals sliding around all over the place on their slippery chests. They grow weak because they don't have to run away from men in furry suits with harpoons, or huge balls of white fur with gnashing teeth. I can just imagine the frustration one encounters when strolling along the Antarctic ice shelf, and suddenly out of nowhere a seal comes sliding across one's foot. Filthy seals.

My next thought was, Logan and Antarctica are basically the same.

My nostrils were sticking together. You know it is cold when that happens. I was carrying an arm full of blankets. I had no gloves, so in short order my digits were numb. It was about that moment that I remembered why I really don't miss Logan much.

I woke up with a crinkled spine. That generally happens when I sleep on a couch that is too short for me. Which is every couch. Which is why I avoid sleeping on couches.

Shit. This was approximately my 4th thought of the day, as I pulled the glaring orange parking ticket out of the frozen crack in my door. What a way to welcome me back.

Where is one supposed to park in Logan? Apparently it is illegal to park on the side of the road between the hours of 1-5 am. I suppose that should have been apparent by the lack of ubiquitous welcome signs attached to posts, warmly inviting people to park on the side of the road. My mistake.

It was a strange feeling of longing that overcame me, as I walked between the frozen snow drifts toward the archives. I nostalgically reminisced longboarding across campus, lying in the grass on the quad eating Haribo coke gummies, walking friendless from class to class. Logan was a brief, strange chapter in my life, one I at times forget even occurred. It sits faded in the fogy nether regions of my memory, rarely visited, almost surreal.

Where would my life be now had I stayed? Would I still be pursuing a teaching degree? Would I have a permanently crinkled spine and be sucking my food through a straw due to a longboarding accident? Would I ever have found myself naked atop the giant bronze bull, my genitalia mingling with God only knows what communicable diseases left there by previous true-blue-aggie hopefulls? All certainly possibilities. All I can say for sure, is that some of the most important people to ever wander into my life have done so during the last year. I have met people whom I love almost as dearly as my family.

I suppose only one thing is certain; I love a lot more people than I did a year ago.