When she parked her car in front of my temporary work place, the sun was shining and her sound system was throbbing, pounding out the bass into the frigid air. Having no inkling of our later experiences, I happily hopped into the passenger seat and strapped in. Melanie lowered the music, turned up the bass and we were on our way, swinging out onto the road and singing at the top of our lungs. After arriving at the party, we proceeded to enjoy ourselves, and when it was over we jumped back into her BMW to go to a Chipotle in Georgetown. Before finally finding the restaurant, her wacky GPS took us through Reagan National Airport, through switchbacks and on side roads. Suffice to say it was interesting.

Lunch was fantastic; thick burritos, the warm restaurant and more laughing. Another one of our mutual friends had joined us (we’ll call him Josh), and the conversation moved at a quick pace. My tongue stung from the spices in my burrito as we walked back to this car that I was beginning to grow fond of. The little machine had sheltered me from the biting cold, and rolled us all over the city. One cannot hope to keep ones emotions separate from this car, I mean, its name was Hans. On our way to drop our friend off at Josh’s house, we got lost again. This time in the Anacostia, on the Maryland side.

Now, the Anacostia can be a nice place-albeit in the bright light of day accompanied by a police escort. Since it was nighttime, and lacking the no doubt useless police escort, we huddled together inside the car and passed a Swiss Army knife back and forth. When Melanie’s GPS decided to quit being a piece of crap, it lead us to a relatively open space inside one of the rundown neighborhoods. A large man with a uniform walked imperiously over to our now sedentary car and motioned for us to roll down the windows. We looked around at each other, eyes wide and hearts practically beating out of our chests. After what seemed like hours, we rolled down the windows, praying silently to God for mercy. Melanie threw up her hands and shrunk down in her seat, explaining herself quickly, “My GPS took us here, I promise. We were looking for Malcolm X Avenue.” The man quirked an eyebrow and realizing that she was probably telling the truth, leaned over and gave her directions to the avenue. He told us that the area was off limits as well. Barely pausing to roll up her windows, she tore out of there, and attempted to reconcile the man’s directions with the path highlighted on the GPS. It wasn’t possible, so we decided to go with his advice. Eventually, and with help from Josh (“It’s that way! That way!”), we turned jerkily onto Malcolm X.

Breathing hard and giggling out of the repressed shock of being alive, we managed to drop off Josh outside his house. Later on, over the Wilson bridge, Melanie and I laughed together and then she said it would be hilarious if Josh had left something in the car. As soon as she finished her sentence, her phone rang. She picked it up and I watched her face tighten in the rear view mirror. With a sinking feeling I heard her say that she couldn’t talk right now; she was driving. She told the person on the phone to call me. I immediately picked up on the fact that it was Josh. Sure enough, he called me and explained that he had left his skates in Hans’ trunk. I explained we couldn’t turn back, and I hung up to call my brother and ask him if he could possibly pick up the skates from my house and bring them to my friend- who had a hockey game in Reston in two hours. He said no, he couldn’t because he was in Manassas. A few desperate phone calls later we decided that Josh would pick up his skates at my house on the way to his game. Then Melanie turned a sharp corner at the prompting of her GPS and promptly popped a tire.

Hearing the sound, and feeling Hans tilt to the right, she parked on the side of the sketch side road and got out, cussing and waving her arms. I got out and we muddled through a half hour of absolutely nothing: no one stopped to help, although every minute a car would pass right by our stranded party. Melanie called her father, her coach, and we attempted to find the toolbox. A nice old man stopped and helped us jack up the car but since we didn’t have a lug wrench or anything, we had to wait for her father to come. Josh, called me and we directed him to our new location. Eventually Melanie’s father came, and then Josh with his father also came, and we slowly changed the tire.

After everyone left the scene, Melanie and I sat in the car and moaned. Then we looked at each other and laughed. She took me home and my family fed her and compensated her for gas and lunch. Poor thing. Josh texted me later that night and said his team had lost the game. Such was the end of our escapade.

La Nina last year- occurring again this winter season

    According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, La Nina , the cold portion of the more familiar El Nino-Southern Oscillation, is making a comeback this winter. A cool pool of water in the eastern Pacific Ocean, La Nina becomes even colder, and trade winds intensify in that region. The winter seasons when La Niña appears are usually drier than is typical, especially along the southern-most section of the United States, while the Ohio Valley and the Pacific Northwest experience a soggier climate.
    La Nina is a result of various climatic interactions between the surface of the ocean and the atmosphere, and ends up greatly affecting the global climate patterns. This phenomenon occurs every 3-5 years, but about 50% of the time there are directly succeeding appearances.

   It’s like the timeless question ‘what is the meaning of life’. While everyone has their own personalized answers or thoughts regarding this question, how does one write conclusively about why a country exists? Is it even a valid question? My solution was to omit that particular content in the hopes that it will be overlooked. The rest of the paper is pretty good though.