It’s that time of the year. The winter doldrums are upon us. Just when you think spring is right around the corner—a 55-degree day last Friday in the final days of February will convince you that warm weather is coming—boom! Another storm hits and quashes our hopes and dreams.

“Eight to 12 inches of snow will pummel Massachusetts and most of southern New England,” say the local meteorologists, who are about as popular as the IRS this time of year.

Now is when we collectively say “enough is enough already.” It’s been cold since November, meaning we’re four months into New England’s worst season. Bitter winds slam snow into our faces. Below zero temperatures lead us to second-guess our decision to leave our room. Slush and sleet make walking down Comm. Ave. feel like crossing the Bering Strait.

Gone are the days when a snowstorm meant you had to shovel the driveway, but gone too, are the hopes of snow days. The T is the traditional yardstick for determining if a snow day will happen—if the T shuts down, BU closes. BU never opened on Monday, so snow days do happen in college; but they are as infrequent as a BU basketball tournament appearance.

On top of the snow are midterm papers and exams. It’s difficult not to feel stuck, as we’ve been doing the same things for months now. Classes, homework, papers, exams. Same roommates, same walk or ride to classes, same weekend routine. Summer is still too far away to get excited.

The only bright spot is that spring break is right around the corner. In a few days, some of us lucky students will depart for sunny shores and crashing waves . We’ll break out the sunscreen and beg for a glass of ice water for refreshment.

The recent Los Angeles wildfires remind me of an acquaintance living there. I lost touch with her for almost half a year. She helped me decide to come to Boston.

I met her at the beginning of this year, as the biggest snowstorm in 50 years buried Shanghai. I would be her personal assistant. She was a successful costume designer from Hollywood, and she had worked on tons of films and was nominated twice for an Academy Award. She must have had numerous assistants. I could tell right away that she was unimpressed with me. She wore in a shiny gold vest and sat by her desk. She cast a glance at me and immediately moved to other things. I was just an inexperienced college student who accidentally fell into this job. I had no clue what lay ahead of me.

In the following months, I almost never satisfied her needs. The feeling of frustration overwhelmed me. I thought she was a picky and arrogant artist, and that made her difficult to get along with. The only moment she smiled and hugged me was the day that I told her that I would go to BU. She excitedly told me that her sister, who is a judge, also went there. However, I lost contact with her about six months ago. I recently realized how important her influence was upon my life.

I see many precious qualities of an artist in her. Although her perfectionism can be annoying and troublesome to others, I envy her compulsiveness.

The first impressive quality is her habit of putting work at the top of her priority list. She can get as little as three hours of sleep (or even no sleep at all) for many days and still be energetic during the day. I never heard her talking about holiday. Even when we went out on weekends, she kept looking for ideas and talking about work. When something related to work occurred to her, she would immediately stop whatever was at hand and go right back to work.

If we were watching Peking Opera, she would study the costumes rather than enjoy the story. If we went shopping, she would always buy something for the film rather than for herself. I was constantly amazed by her endless passion for her job. Only after meeting her did I realize that I have never truly dedicated myself to anything.

Although she was a demanding person that annoyed me from time to time, there were certain moments that I felt she was the most adorable person in the world. For example, on a freezing February morning I saw her standing alone in the wind looking at something. It was the ashes of firecrackers that people burned the night before, which was Chinese New Year’s Eve. She was so obsessed with the ashes that she forgot the time until co-workers dragged her back to the office. “What exactly were you doing?” we asked. “It was beautiful!” she said, and she tried to get rid of us so that she could go back to the ashes. She is three times my age, but she is younger than I am in heart.

When she heard that I had a thing for photography, she took it seriously and recommended many schools to me. She criticized my way of treating my portfolio — in an indifferent and careless way. She showed me how she treated her work — with diligence.

She once asked me if I would visit her after I came to Boston, and I feel guilty that I haven’t contacted her in the past three months. But I’ve been thinking about her constantly. I reference her way of doing things in my own work. She is a role model and a source of inspiration.

I was deeply sorry to hear about the wildfires, and the first thing came to my mind was her condition. I wish soon I could see her again, bringing my best work and what I’ve learned here with me so I could show her how she had influenced me in a positive way.

Last February, I decided I wanted to graduate a semester early. By March, all the essential plans had been made to do so and by April my application for graduation was signed, sealed and delivered. It was official. If this is something you decide to pursue, my one piece of advice is that you plan very carefully, and once everything is planned out, plan it all out again.

I could elaborate on this complicated process, but something more pressing is at hand: Finding a job at an advertising agency during these unsettling economic times.

When my plans to graduate this January were finalized back in April, I was under the assumption that looking for a job four months ahead of my classmates would go smoothly. As we all know, one should never assume, for it makes an ass out of you and certainly in this case, out of me. I confess that I did not see this one coming… and I don’t think too many others in my situation did either.

I have been doing all the things one should do when job hunting, like perfecting the résumé, writing snappy cover letters, and following up on applications. Much to my dismay, I have had no luck, yet.

While one would logically assume that tight economic times means a cut back on all advertising spending, that seems to not be the case for everyone.

Recently, TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles, which handled the U.S. advertising segment of VISA’s business, won the VISA global account. VISA has been a company that has been quite vocal about its plans to continue spending on advertising during this economic crisis.

Many brands believe that a recession is the perfect time to spend advertising dollars because of the fact that their competitors are doing the opposite, and those companies that invest in advertising can either pull ahead of the competition or secure a niche for themselves as a brand. An example of this was during the depression of the 1930’s when the Post cereal brand cut back on advertising and Kellogg kept spending, becoming the industry leader that it remains to this day.

“I love bad times,” says Martin Puris in a story in the September 29th issue of BusinessWeek. Martin is a creative who came up with the BMW slogan, ‘the ultimate driving machine’ during the mid-1970’s when consumer spending was down. “In good times people are less apt to try new things. In bad times, they have to start to do things better.”

My parents and brothers are all telling me to be wary of the current advertising market, but I have hope that there is an advertising or design firm somewhere in Los Angeles that isn’t afraid to take a chance in these unstable times. After all, what else can we do but hope?

I’m sitting in class two weeks ago when one of my professors goes on a rant about bicyclists on campus. It came out of nowhere. “They’re so annoying,” the professor says. Then the rest of the students in the class, except yours truly, join in. “They always break the rules of the road. I’ve almost been hit by one.”

I hear similar comments from time to time from others, and as someone who has ridden a bike in the city for well over a year now, I can’t quite figure out why people hold such a disdain for bike riders. So here is my defense.

First of all, plain and simple, riding a bike is the easiest way of getting to and from class known to BU students, especially those living on West Campus or off campus. From my apartment, I can make it to COM in 10 minutes. And that’s on a bad day. If I hit all greens riding down Comm. Ave., shave three minutes off that time.

What other method of transportation will get you to class so quickly?

Walking? Not a shot. Twenty-two minutes in my most recent timing.

The T? That’s not happening, either. Let me remind you that the MBTA (the company that operates the T) is climbing its way out of the red, and at the current rate they should be operating with a surplus by the time your grandchildren graduate from BU. And the Cubs will have won a World Series by then. Workers are actually thinking about deliberately slowing down service. The bottom line, though, is that it will take at least 15 minutes on the train or bus, but it changes from day to day. You can never be certain when the train or bus will actually show up. It’s kind of like Manny Ramirez’s tenurewith the Red Sox. You literally did not know if he would show up and play sometimes, especially in his final days with the team in July before he was traded to the Dodgers. (Did I really just analogize Manny to the T? At least the T eventuallyshows up.) Plus, when the T does come, you have to pay $1.70 (with a Charlie Card, two bucks without). Or just sneak in the back doors because it’s too crowded to enter the front and the T driver is too busy texting to even care about collecting the fare.

The BU Shuttle? This is a nice alternative. And I mean nice in every sense of the word. It’s not great, not always reliable, but usually it comes through for you. Without taking into consideration the time it takes you to walk to the bus in front of Agganis Arena, the cleverly-named BUS (Boston University Shuttle=BUS) gets you to the main campus in about seven minutes. Then you have a minute or so walk to your class.

Car? Very few people drive to class. Waste of gas. Parking is next to impossible. Waste of money to pay for a parking spot wherever you live. Don’t do it.

Clearly the bike is the best way of getting to class. It takes the least amount of time, leaving you more time to sleep and read your free copy of the Boston Globe with breakfast (What? BU doesn’t provide the Globe for free anymore? I’m paying how much to go here?) Also, a bike is free once you have one. Why pay $200+ for a semester T pass when this alternative is available to you?

Besides the time and money factor, here are some other reasons why riding a bike is a good idea:

• Exercise. Sure, it’s only a brief ride, but for some people it’s more then they would get anyway. Roundtrip, it’s a 15-minute workout. This means you can walk to your favorite fast food joint to account for the remaining 15 minutes of the recommended daily exercise time.

• Environment. Biking is green, even if your bike is scarlet and white (BU’s official colors). No burning of fossil fuels. The only thing you’re burning are the calories from the omelet Nicole made you at West Campus Dining Hall.

Now let me address the “breaking the rules” and “hitting pedestrians” complaint. On the latter point–if you’re a pedestrian and you get hit by a bike, one of two explanations applies.

The first explanation is that you thought no cars were coming when the light was still green, and completely ignored the bike. That one’s your fault. The second explanation is that the person riding the bike was just stupid. That’s just life. There are stupid people everywhere; they are not restricted to bikes. People in cars are often stupid, and someone walking down the street has probably run into you at some point in your walking life (which I imagine is pretty long and started around the age of 1). If you were hit by a bike while walking on the sidewalk, then you have every right to be upset.

Regarding “breaking the rules” of the road, it’s something all bike riders are guilty of–and I don’t feel bad about it at all. If I’m at an intersection and my light is red, I look to see if cars are coming from another direction that would impede my forward progress. If all is clear, I don’t sit there obediently and wait for the light to turn green. I just go. Why not? For a non-bike rider, it’s easy to sit there and complain about how I break the rules of the road and should wait like the cars do. But, really, what’s the point of waiting? The cars are going to catch up to me anyway, and it’s safer for me to get a head start so that they can plan their maneuver around me ahead of time.

Rationalizing? Yes. So be it.

Bike riders on campus are not going anywhere. Except to class. Very quickly.