After the girl at the desk swiped my card, I walked into the changing room and set my stuff down on one of the several benches. Then I took off my Converses and sweatpants, placed them in a locker and put my running shoes on. And once my hair was in a ponytail and my iPod was strapped on my arm, it was time to work out.

As soon as I got to the cardio area, I realized how busy it was. At first, I thought all of the machines were taken. After looking around a little more, though, I saw that there were a few open ones.

I went toward one of the treadmills, but I stopped when I noticed the paper with “Out of Order” written on it. Thankfully, there was another treadmill nearby, and I didn’t see any signs on this one. I hopped on and pressed quickstart, and guess what happened… nothing – this one was broken, too.

Because I was having no luck, I decided to work on my legs first and then finish with a 20-minute run. Happy that I was finally about to start my workout, I practically skipped to the leg press. My good spirits were crushed, however, when I saw yet another piece of paper telling me that I couldn’t use the machine.

OK, is it just me, or does the Rec Center really need upgraded? I mean, come on. It seems like stuff breaks easily and doesn’t get fixed for a while, and that’s not cool.

I know that a lot of money is going to be put into new changing areas, but what about the actual equipment? In all honesty, I think that should be the number one priority, because students don’t want to use faulty machines. Trust me.

Recently, my friend has been letting me use his guest passes at the YMCA down the road, because I have gotten tired of all the problems at our gym. And let me tell you how much I love it there. Everything is brand new, there is a greater assortment of machines and there are enough so that people rarely have to wait.

So can something please be done? I know I’m not the only one who would appreciate it.