Staff Box by Sara Foss

A little landscaping and weather control brighten everything

Sometime during my day-long drive back to New Hampshire for Spring Break the mountains began to appear. As well as curvy roads and rolling hills, rising out of the bleak, gray and flat Ohio terrain.

My fellow passenger and I, both of us from the Upper Valley, an area of Vermont and New Hampshire, gazed out the windows, enchanted. For once, the weather was not obeying the Oberlin Travel Departure Rule, the law that states that as soon as one tries to leave school for home, the weather has to turn god awful. No, on this wonderful day, despite the blizzard that struck midterm week, there were both hills and sun, two important features that Oberlin, more often than not, lacks. Of course, Oberlin always lacks hills. But sometimes, there's sun.

Something weird happened to me during my Spring Break: I was happy to be at my house. For the four years I was forced to live in the Upper Valley prior to attending college, I was never, ever happy to be there - I couldn't wait to escape. At the time, I foolishly thought I lived in the most unappealing place in the world.

But now I know better, because I've lived in Oberlin for almost two years, and during this time I have come to understand the importance of weather and landscape, and the impact they both have upon people.

I try to tell other people, but I'm not sure the importance of weather and landscape is something that can be understood until one has been displaced from one's natural habitat.

For example. During break, I drove my high school junior sister and her high school junior friends around and fielded questions about College Life. Why did I choose Oberlin? What important qualities should be considered when choosing the Right College? Etc. Well, I replied, a lot of things should be taken into consideration when selecting Your College. But, I continued, I never thought to consider landscape and weather when choosing between colleges, and landscape and weather should definitely be considered. But all the high school juniors just looked confused. They couldn't understand. They had never left their natural habitat and found themselves in the ugliest place on earth.

But this week I was reminded that Oberlin is not always the ugliest place on earth, though my belief that the natural progression of seasons extends to Oberlin was tested on Monday, April 1, April Fool's Day. I think we all remember that day. The day it got real cold and snowed, despite temperatures in the 60s the day before, the day we returned from break.

"I like winter," my roommate told me as we trudged to class that snowy morning, "but not in April." She then suggested that the snow and temperature drop was caused by giant snow machines set up by the College as part of an elaborate April Fool's Day joke. But I didn't believe her. With a $3.2 million structural deficit, Oberlin just can't afford that kind of operation.

Because when the sun doesn't shine and it snows every day, when the land is plain and boring, people are affected. The stress gets to them. More angry looks than usual are exchanged.

But the difference in attitude on a random day of sunshine! There was one really nice day, either in early March or late February, and on this really nice day I found some friends, and we found a soccer ball, and then we ran around and frolicked, and my mood was exponentially better afterward.

The same phenomenon occurred this week, when by Wednesday it was sunny, students filled Wilder Bowl, ran around in sandals, and, I am sure, treated their fellow men and women with more kindness and consideration than in times of bad weather. The change in weather between Monday and Wednesday made a world of difference. We could all see that there's good in the world sometimes.

Maybe we can't have hills, which, I am sure, by creating an interesting landscape would make us all happier and kinder, but the seasons, the sun - please. I, for one, beg Mother Nature to lay off the cruel jokes.