The first thing I heard when I got to Binghamton at the end of August was how much the weather sucked and how it rained all the time. “Whatever,” I thought, “I’m from Syracuse and your weather doesn’t impress me.” I go to school when it’s 30 below. Below zero that is. Yes, oh city children/Lon Gislanders, it gets that cold in this state.

I don’t care about rain, except when it goes on for weeks on end. Even then, I wouldn’t mind too much, except that I refuse to do laundry more than I have to. In order not to not walk around in pants soaked to the knee all day, I’d have to wear a different pair every time I braved the outside. I don’t have the clothing, the time or the willingness to deal with that many pairs of pants.

This is leading up to my bigger issue, which is the absolute lack of, shall we call it, brain function on the part of the people who designed the campus drainage system. I know hindsight is 20/20 and all, but still, one might have realized that, hey, making each of the drainage ditches the peak of its own little hill would not be conducive to getting rid of the water.

Take, for example, the pathways between the New Union and the Fine Arts building. Any time it rains, there is a flood that creates an ocean. The ocean, ironically, even has its own islands, a.k.a., the things that are supposed to actually be draining this water.

My personal favorite (and by favorite, I mean the example that makes me the most angry/thoroughly soaked) is the walk up into College-in-the-Woods from the rest of campus. Anyone who’s ever walked up that road bears witness to the veritable tsunami that you’re trying to walk against. If you can make it up the CIW road in a rainstorm, you’ve got any major body of water with a strong current covered. CIW residents should get phys. ed. credit just for having to take a swim test to get to the dorms.

Call me crazy, but if you’re in a location that is known for its rain, it seems to me that coming up with a superior method of dealing with your precipitation issues would be pretty much expected. Syracuse has plows for snow, NYC has air so dirty that no precipitation can penetrate: Binghamton needs drains. Functional drains. Or maybe they’d prefer to put body-sized hand dryers in all the entrances of buildings. That would work too, if they’d prefer a more creative solution.

Molly Ariotti is a freshman studying international affairs.