Writing is a lot like running (except that running is much harder.)

Truthfully, running a tough course produces quite the euphoric aftermath that is not without its charm. After all, who wouldn’t feel like a titan (er, Viking) after debunking such frivolous personal limitations as "This is completely ridiculous…" and learning that yes, it is possible to sprint the dickens out of the last 400m or so over a less-than-gentle incline in a dead heat when you were under the impression that you were very much out of figurative gas half a mile ago on a nearly three-mile course.

Such is the enduring joy of a sport seen by some as pointless and/or senseless and by many as essentially masochistic–the ability to simply say that yes, I have conquered the beast and I live yet. This is similar to voluntarily staying up till the wee hours of the morn to guarantee reaching one’s quarterly journalism word count.

Tangentially speaking, it isn’t easy being on the cross-country team, but that’s true for…well, most sports I can think of. “Pshaw! It’s just jogging around,” you say? Believe it or not, it’s all that and a bag’o’chips. “Just jogging around” is not only a misrepresentation of our sport, nay, it devalues our artful expression of the skill required to achieve physical feats past the capacity of most others. Besides, we don’t “jog.” We run. Seriously. And it hurts.

What’s that you say? You’ve read enough articles over the years about journalist-athletes griping about 6 A.M. morning practices while trying to meet word quotas? Admittedly, I have the opportunity to complain to other, more sympathetic people of the same ilk at practice. Yet the mere fact that I hold the power of the press in my wily dancing fingertips is enough that I can express whatever opinion (within obvious limits) I desire while still getting credit for career/vocational education studies. I’m also allowed to go rambling on off about completely irrelevant subjects, assuming the reader has not noticed by this time.

And it’s a beautiful thing, man, because I am making a difference.

Plenty of readers must have realized by now that the sway of the media is omnipotent, as expressed by Western society’s fascination with the ninth season of Survivor (don’t even get me started about that.) Furthermore, according to certain fashion magazines that shall remain nameless, a normal girl should aspire to be a buxom blond stick figure. Hollywood claims to be working on negating that, but I speak for a good-sized (hardy-har har) part of the population when I say, “where’s the beef?”

Here’s that power trip I mentioned earlier. If somebody other than my editors ends up reading this, they may develop a strong enough opinion to some thing or another I’ve been spouting off to send feedback. That’s right, my pretties, you’re just playing into our hands, because we’re making you think! Now your unique visitor status enables us to prove to the world that high school scholars really do have opinions, that we are not uniformly ill informed A&F mavens bent on worldwide liposuction and mandatory plastic surgery for the less genetically endowed. And the moral of the story is that I have made it all possible. Me, me, me.

Join a student publication. Even better, if you think you’re cool enough, maybe you can even get on Voice and save the trees, you web savvy devil.