It is a Friday night in the city of Eau Claire, the night is young, and this 19-year-old girl wishes to hit the town. Halt, step back...this is the city of Eau Claire. Options for my night consist of: house party, house party, or house party.

There is a distinct problem as I have come to see it; There is nothing to offer the under 21-year-old crowd who want to go out and be social. I am finding it irritating that we are slapped up with drinking tickets and lectured on how we should spend our college time doing other activities when this city and the University do not provide us a place to be social and interact. How many bars on Water Street and downtown are there again? Right, point made.

Biggest problem...everything is closed! It is Friday night and I cannot even go out for a cup of coffee, because heaven forbid the urge to do so should hit past 9:00 p.m. If students under 21 do not join clubs and organizations, there are very few ways to really meet other people in a state of sobriety. Granted, the over-21 crowd spends a great deal of time getting to know one another while annihilated; they at least can go to the shows that occasionally make it to Eau Claire. I mean, even the keg's cashed before midnight.

The University goes to great lengths to voice how they feel about binge drinking, but words are weak and I want to see action! Do not just tell us not to drink, give us a student union on campus that is open late on the weekends and creates an atmosphere where students of all ages want to hang out and interact.

I have heard it over and over. "Join a club or organization to meet people." Well what if you do not want to join up? I do not see lines of people waiting to get involved. Yet, I can find very few students who do not want a place to meet and get to know people.

The options are wearing quite thin for us. What do we do from here? We want friends, we want crowds--not necessarily to be drunk, but if it is that or staying home on a Friday night, the decision is clear. So we follow the crowds down the street to where we may all illegally crowd, shoulder to shoulder, into a stranger's basement, and buy a cup from a keg that can't even be seen, thus buying our under-21 right to meet other people. Does anyone else see how ironic this all seems?

Okay fair enough, if we're sick of the house party scene, maybe it's time to take a break and hit the library for an evening on the weekend...oh wait...it is closed at 9 p.m. I would hit the books in my apartment, but the bass from the bottom of my duplex is so loud the walls are shaking.

In a college town, it is bad enough that the city does not even have a 24-hour Perkins to cater to our late night hours, but our own University does not have our backs. In fact, they give us a helping hand onto that stranger's coffee table where we will shake our booties to "Baby Got Back." Sound familiar anyone?

I would really like to meet people who do not profess their love to me in a drunken stammer before I even get their name. I would really like to be intellectually stimulated past the hour of 9 p.m. Mostly...I would really like the option of going out on the town and not getting drunk. Only, I do want to be surrounded by my peers and have a good time, so tell me, please--what option do I have?

It is Friday night... and this 19-year-old girl is fed up.