Hello there. Well, what an interesting weekend. Described in one word, I would have to go with "frustrating". Frustrated because once again I came to the realization that partying all night is no longer a favorite pastime of mine. Frustrated that my school workload did not miraculously complete itself. Frustrated about anything and everything to do with the opposite sex. Tie those all in together and I do believe I've got myself quite the little predicament. Perhaps one shared by many students who attempt to mix some semplance of a social life with the completion of a degree. Of course these problems are entirely fixable, entirely of my own creation, and entirely lame and insignificant compared to, well, just about anything happening out in the real world.

An easy solution would involve something as simplistic as more dedication to school, less time spent procrastinating, but in today's glitsy, glamorous world oh how easy it is to whittle away ones time. The computer houses the biggest store of time-wasters; e-mail, IMing, the addictive facebook and myspace, iTunes, and of course, blogging. Then there's lunch dates with friends, shopping dates, movie dates and tv dates - everyone wants to do weekly ANTM's and Grey's. The beach calls, the pubs beckon; random, endless fun is a rampant problem when living in a University town. All this and we haven't even mentioned the pinacle of temptation: the opposite sex. Ubiquitous, quite literally. At the gym I find myself desperately attempting to not sweat so as not to scare off the trove of males parading around the room. At the beach they throw footballs and kick sand and laugh loudly as someone retells a Dane Cook joke and I forelornly attempt to study Socratic dialogues 5 feet away. They are at the grocery store staring and smiling and seductively picking up fruit. At pubs and clubs its one beautiful specimen after another, prancing around, their insatiable desire oozing along with the latest Axe scent. Worst of all is in the classroom, where they are either preppy hot or jock hot or skater hot or professor hot, and its all you can do to consentrate on Globalization and the WTO. But of course your prof is married and the preppy one lives with his long-term "gf", the jock is a 'playa' and the skater is eyeing up the perky blonde in the front row. Your girlfriends have boyfriends, whose guy friends drink too much/smoke too much/slut around too much. Couples are EVERYwhere and even if they are threatening each other within an inch of their lives you still wish it was you because makeup sex is better than anything you're currently NOT getting.

So, needless to say, slightly frustrating. Do you stop trying to weave the social into the studies? Do you go with the "I don't have time for a relationship," plunker down into the groove of homework, homework, homework and occationally have a good cry over The Notebook? Or do you quietly, subtly keep your eyes open, stealthly evaluating each potencial prospect, whilst juggling school work and friend time and family time and precious, precious alone time.

The later sounds only remotely more appealing than the rest. Lets call it a solution and run with it.