Sometime between my semi-annual bike accident and my customary run-in with Pirate at I.V. Market, I got to thinking about unavoidable repetition. I’ve been at UCSB for a few years now and though I’ve taken classes in a wide array of subject matter and I’ve met new people each quarter, it seems that my life here is doomed to repeat itself.

The rain, for example.

Everybody who has been in SB before knows that it’s going to rain off and on throughout late Fall and early Winter Quarters of the school year. Yet time and time again, the rain seems to catch me completely by surprise. And I don’t think it’s just me.

After having dug through everything I own to find my hooded sweatshirt and umbrella, I begrudgingly donned tennis shoes for the first time since last year’s rain and began the long trudge toward class, cursing my inability to bike without getting covered in mud.

But there were people whizzing by on bikes as if there were nothing odd about having a large brown stripe up the back of their clothes all day. There were people without jackets hugging themselves as if they couldn’t figure out where all the wet and cold was coming from. Still others were tottering between puddles in high heels and mini-skirts.

I’m beginning to believe in spontaneous collective amnesia.

Sure, some of the nonsense can be written off as freshman inexperience, but I don’t think that’s the half of it.

Perhaps the lot of us are indefatigable optimists; if we hold onto the belief that UCSB is the eternally sunny campus by the sea, maybe it will remain that way year round. And if we suffer through the rain and act as though it’s a completely surprising thing, maybe the clouds will get the drift and pass us by this time.

What’s the problem with that?

Well, nothing, really. Except the inevitable rush on Student Health that tends to follow this shared leap of optimistic faith on everyone’s part.

But that’s not the real problem.

The real problem is that not enough people are believers.

What am I saying? I’ll spell it out:

The optimism is not in vain, my friends. It is simply that not enough of our peers are joining us in our quest to will the rain away.

Remember in Peter Pan how everyone had to clap their hands to make Tinkerbell live again?

I’m thinking that if everyone dresses for warm weather, if everyone believes that the sun will come out tomorrow, that it will.

Given, I do have odd ideas now and then, but I don’t think faith-based meteorology is any more anomalous than, say, the career of Paris Hilton. Or hairless cats.

So, non-believers, I implore you to join the rest of us optimists in ignoring the rain. I, for one, pledge to chuck my umbrella and sweatshirt for the good of us all.

The rain just wants attention, anyway. Don’t give it what it wants.

Bust out your Bermuda shorts and bikini tops for one last hurrah! Together, we shall will the rain away.

Or flock to Student Health in record numbers trying.

If you’re looking to score some fairy dust, Daily Nexus columnist Bri Lafond has a mad stash.

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