Does anyone else get a serious case of the winter blahs every February? I spent a fair amount of time last month searching “beach vacation” on Google and imagining I was somewhere with sand and sun––somewhere worry-free.

But in the process of putting together Issue 2, I realized that I need to wake up and smell the paper mill. Our winter blahs won’t be cured until we stop wishing we were elsewhere and let go of the perfect version of reality that we write inside our heads. I think all of us have things we would like to change about this campus or about our lives, but we don’t always speak up about it. The Pio––in our best moments––can give voice to the stories that are waiting to be heard and play our small part in the progress towards change.

I hope that Issue 2 will make you see this campus differently, for better and for worse. Photographer Ethan Parrish shows us the floral resonances he notices in Whitman art & architecture and Faith Bernstein finds leafiness in the human spine. Issue 2 also brings up a more serious reality of campus life in Rachel Alexander’s narrative of students’ sexual assault experiences and the blurriness of the term “consent” at Whitman when alcohol becomes involved.

There’s content of a cheerier nature, too: Whitman professors struggle to shortlist their favorite books, Ellie Newell teaches us how to navigate the grocery store jungle and our backpage astrologer gives us her predictions for the month ahead.

Happy Spring Break, Whitman. Maybe some of you are reading this on a beach somewhere.

Tricia