Unless you have more money than you could ever spend right now, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of applying for financial aid. Just the few minutes or hours you can spend trying to get money (some of which is free money) can turn out to be very lucrative. I would not have been able to complete my education so efficiently if I had not had the help of grants and scholarships. Don’t be daunted by the process! It is well worth the small effort required.

The application for privately funded University of Alaska scholarships is February 15, and if you are a procrastinator who hasn’t filled it out yet, you can apply in just a few hours online at www.uaonline.alaska.edu. There is no reason not to – especially when hundreds of thousands of dollars are there for the taking.

Also make sure you get your taxes done and fill out your FAFSA as soon as possible to get as much aid as you can. If you are not sure what to do, there is tons of help available on campus. Check out the campus Web site, www.uaf.edu/finaid, or visit the Financial Aid Office in the Eielson Building for more information.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

It is hard to imagine the existence of warm feelings and flowers when Fairbanks temperatures are too low for any life to exist comfortably. Some of you who are miserable this week will blame it on the holiday for lovers.

I disagree. February is an all-around unpleasant month.

I agree with the great novelist, Tom Robbins, author of “Still Life with a Woodpecker” and “Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas” in his description of the month found in “Jitterbug Perfume.”

“… February is as useless as the extra r in its name. It behaves like an obstacle, a wedge of slush and mud and ennui holding both progress and contentment at bay.

“If February is the color of lard on rye, its aroma is that of wet wool trousers. As for sound, it is an abstract melody played on a squeaky violin, the petty whine of a shrew with cabin fever. O February, you may be little but you’re small! Were you twice your tiresome length, few of us would survive to greet the merry month of May.

“It was no accident that our ancestors pinned Valentine’s Day on February’s shirt: he or she lucky enough to have a lover in frigid, antsy February has cause for celebration, indeed.”