I’m a little heartbroken. Football’s over, which means the sports I watch on purpose are done until the fall (I’ve fallen asleep to a baseball game several times). The festivities culminated last Sunday, in a super event of epic proportions. At least, that’s the way things were supposed to turn out. I’m not sure what changed this year, but the most exciting part of the big game was, according to this blogger, when the lights went out. At our party, the jokes would not stop, and bets were made on how much longer it’d take.

Some friends and I did have a small get together. We all brought a dish. I’ve never had so much cheese dip nor as many desserts in my life, because that’s everything everyone brought. But it was still nice. Then, to the background noise of the biggest football game of the season, we played online quiz games. Before we knew it, the game was over.

The commercials weren’t very memorable.

What happened?

Did you know Poland has the 5th most tractors on any country on the planet?

That’s from one of the quiz games I played.

Anyway, I’m not sure what made this year’s football showdown so not important to me. Maybe it’s because both teams came from opposite coasts, causing me to be completely neutral. I tried to be a 49ers fan. They had a great comeback, or so I’ve heard.

Missed it.

It’s a Winter Wonderland. I’m walking in it, and my shoes are getting soaked.

Late last year I wrote a post about the snowy weather ruining the school year. I complained about the way the roads would be, how cold it would get and about the fact that I hate soup.

It is currently 45 degrees out, and has been raining all morning. Allow me to apologize for my hasty analysis of what this winter would bring.

Unless I’m forced to make awkward conversation with people on the bus, I’m probably done discussing the weather. There is no formula to describe what it will bring. You can’t count cards and anticipate what Iowa weather will be like. It’s all roulette. From now on, I’m just going to wake up, look out the window, say, “Oh,” and carry on with my day.

There is no meteorology major at the University of Iowa. There’s nothing amazing about the daily weather. I get it.

Breaks are always welcome, but the 5 week winter break we just had really started to draaaaaaag after New Year’s Day. Regardless, it’s great to be back in ye grand ol’ Iowa City. It’s been so cold, I’ve actually taken to wearing scarfs. They’re functional and stylish!

Here’s an overview of what happened within the last 5 weeks, in case you decided to make like a bear and hibernate in a cave.

• We learned that tragedy leads to finger-pointing rather than cooperation.
• We rode up to the fiscal cliff, then instead of falling over, hopped on to a glider. We’ve got a little while before it becomes worthy of major news attention again.
• The world didn’t end, which is wonderful considering that I decided to not invest all my money in scratch off lottery tickets.
• A cluster of holidays happened, reminding me of the generous person I should be but give up on soon after.
• The ball dropped in New York City, but NO ONE had champagne in Times Square.
• Alabama beat Notre Dame, and we experienced the controversy one man could cause by complimenting a younger woman on national television (although she later commented that it was a nice gesture).
• The 49ers and Ravens are going to New Orleans. You can join them in the Superdome if you’ve got two grand to drop on a ticket (and a lot more to buy gumbo).
• People only care about certain sports when they involve controversy. I had forgotten cycling was a thing.
• Obama was inaugurated for his second term in office, except this time the crowd in DC was a lot smaller. I probably wouldn’t have gone either. IT’S COLD OUT!
• I purchased 3 new appliances. A blender, crock pot and electric kettle. My life is becoming overrun with convenience. I hired a robot to write this blog.

I probably forgot something, don’t be shy in telling me what.

Happy second semester!

Adam

While our counterparts at Iowa State are graced with a dead week to “study,” we still find ourselves attending class.

Thank goodness.

While it may seem like a drag to not get a whole week off to study at whatever pace you desire, the structure of this last week will probably be doing you a huge favor. Have you ever had a bunch of homework to do over a weekend? Your Saturday’s totally free, so you’ll take care of some of it then, and then the rest on Sunday morning, leaving time for plenty of activities.

Then, 9 p.m. on Sunday’s shown up and you’ve done NOTHING. Things got so busy with the Facebook and the…Facebook. Better rationalize it by complaining about how much work you have on Facebook!

I’m super grateful that this university is forcing me to attend classes. It’s for my own good. Really. I feel like we’re actually lucky to be graced with review sessions so close to finals. Those that have been keeping up with their studies will get a good refresher, and the rest of us will have material to guide our panic-stricken week.

Coffee’s cheap, most of life isn’t. It’s better to not waste study time playing Spent (it’s a pretty enlightening game, I suggest looking it up), study, and then avoid playing Spent in real life (again, you’d really need to play it for a few minutes to understand what I mean).

Good luck,

Adam

It’s too cold, tooooooo damn cold. It’s amazing how drastic my perception of the winter has changed within the last 10 years. 10 years ago this weather would have been a gift. Cold meant snow, and snow meant sweet freedom from academic ties that now seem laughable. Now, all that the cold means is layers. The cold means a nose that is both runny and numb, leading me to mistake the purpose of the glances from the girl at the bus stop. Cold means freezing my buns off outside, then melting from the overkill heating within most of the buildings on campus.

And that snow thing? Please, please keep it away from me until winter break is in session. Let me get far away from the need to commute (reliably) from place to place before it becomes a hassle. Cold snowy weather means lots of Puffs with lotion (for the sensitive nose), and pretending to like soup. I don’t like soup.

Not all is lost to Jack Frost (whom I liken to the member of the boy-band with the frost tips hair style) though. The cold weather means a change in style. Coats and sweaters add a flair to the day; one that would be beyond uncomfortable during warmer months. Plus, now there’s an excuse to indulge in expensive, cold weather themed coffee (gotta get that Pumpkin Pie Latte!).

The two-week-tumble between Thanksgiving and winter break is hectic. It’s painstakingly there. It’ll be a cold one. Button up, hunker down, and invest in wool socks.

-Adam

Last weekend, I drove out to the suburbs of Chicago to visit my grandparents. The visit was pleasant, and while I was sad to go, that feeling was soon lost in a sense of bitter humor as I forked over eight more dollars (close to seventeen round trip) on the Illinois tollway to get back to my state of free highways and corn.

So now that the elections are officially over (Florida finally joined the party! More importantly, who cares?!), I have to ask: Where did the politics go? Where are all the fiery Facebook posts? The political ads? The local news covering something that mattered? It seems we all stop caring once it’s no longer a competition, once we no longer have the need to butt heads with our neighbors. What does that say about the rest of our political system? At it’s core, is it a crummy action movie we turn on in the background for noise? Politicians take it seriously while we ignore what’s happening.

Whether you liked all the media attention and propaganda during the election or not, it got you to care about something. You discussed (sometimes incoherently) the issues with your friends and Facebook acquaintances, and you probably read the paper more. You paid attention to something. Obviously, always having political commercials on would drive us to the brink, but would it be the end of the world to do some of the arguing for ourselves? If we controlled more of the discussion and cared about something, Washington would probably run a little more smoothly.

It’d be a little outdated for me to wear this. Why is that?

Tomorrow is your last day to exercise your voice, productively, in American politics. If you haven’t been lured into voting early by the many opportunities to do so on campus, get ready for the rush that is voting on election day. It’ll be messy and crowded, but it’ll be worth it!

Democracy in America is the best system of government on the face of the planet. We enjoy freedoms many other countries, even those as developed as our own, don’t get. However, we’re a broken and messy system. Democracy has grown from several thousand Greeks screaming at each other in a stadium into a giant, misinformed, argument between 300 million individuals which includes (but certainly is not limited to) the fabrication of lies, finger pointing, and eating Big Macs. That’s American Democracy.

Here’s an analogy. Imagine you’re driving your little brother to the hospital to get vaccinations. He’s getting these vaccinations so that he can be allowed in schools, get an education, and then lead a better existence as compared to what he’s attained in his current four year old lifespan. However, he refuses to see your point of view, and does everything in his power to ruin your plan (including kicking, screaming, and creating Filibusters), because all he sees is the 5 seconds of pain during the shot.

You represent one political party (it doesn’t matter, take your pick), and your little brother represents the other. That’s why nothing gets done, the debt goes up, and news sources make money playing the blame game.

There’s no simple fix to anything. There simply can’t be in a situation involving over 300 million people, and almost equally as many different factors. However you vote on November 6 (and please do), make sure you’re hoping to promote unity and teamwork within our nation, and not just trying to kick the other side in the pants.

I’m a little late with the blog this week. This last weekend was busy, but I admit that today is a totally free day for me, and I’m just getting this up. I think I’ve found the biggest danger to my college education…

It’s not debt from tuition, nor is it the weather (best wishes to anyone affected by current weather conditions), nor is it hunger.

It’s AMC’s “The Walking Dead.”

It’s actually a collaboration of a number of things. For starters, today is the wonderful break in my week where there’s nothing going on. Minimal classes combine with sleeping in, add a pinch of distraction like Netflix or Facebook and… VOILA! A whole day wasted. Today, I went so far as to do dishes to avoid doing homework (although… they really needed to be done…). Luckily I have an open evening to get my act together, but it’s about time.

Be careful with the free time college life provides you with. Because block scheduling with classes starting at 8 and extracurricular stuff that run until 12 hours later no longer exist, you’ll be tempted to do the polar opposite. So don’t be like me, do something today.

Maybe go vote?

-Adam

Halloween is upon us, and it’s important to get the most that you can out of the event. Now, while it’s key to dress up like your career aspirations (I’m surprised by the number of girls that want to be police officers, nurses, and bumblebees!), there are other steps you should take to maximize the holiday before you get old…and have to give actual kids candy.

1. Go trick-or-treating. Obviously. There’s a lot of residential area in Iowa City, Corralville and Cedar Rapids. If you’re feeling up to it, there’s no funner a way to earn a bag full of candy…and make people roll their eyes!
2. Get to a haunted house. Yes, you’ll know it’s fake. Yes, you’ll feel like you wasted 20 bucks walking through a barn (a normal part of Iowa culture), but you’ll get to tweet about it and Instagram every cheesy moment. Plus! You’ll get to feel brains in a bowl (I didn’t know brains were so much like spaghetti! Yum!)
3. Watch a scary movie and get scared. Get scared to the point where it throws off your sleep schedule. There are so many “Paranormal Activity” movies out, they’re like “Normal Activity” for me. I’ll be watching anything with Chucky in it. I watched that movie when I was 8 and that stuff sticks…
4. Carve a pumpkin. Make art out of it. When else is it culturally acceptable to butcher bad tasting vegetables? (Is pumpkin a vegetable? Nope…it’s a fruit…either way, now’s the time when it’s O.K. to play with your food…are pumpkins really food?).

Booo!

Know the feeling you get after conquering something you thought you never had a chance against? Like at the end of most action movies, where the protagonist is sitting outside the ambulance, a bandage on his arm where he was shot during countless shootouts/chase sequences, and he’s totally chill talking to the commissioner or something? I’m buzzing on that feeling right now.

Obviously, I haven’t been shot or shot at, I haven’t faced any real physical danger at all.

My midterm sequence is all done.

It is quite the relief. No more four hour nights (I’m too much of a sissy to pull all-nighters, it’s never worth it), no more coffee overdoses, and no more stressing over the fact that I should have tried harder the first half of the semester. It is done amigos.

Despite my content and nostalgia over my accomplishments, it’s probably time to set some goals for this next half-semester.

No more putting off studying, missing homework assignments, waiting until the night before, skipping classes, not talking to professors, not studying a little bit every night, abusing caffeine to fix my mistakes, pretending watching MythBusters on Netflix is learning, staring at the wall, consistent late nights, SparkNoting, starting my homework time with the easiest assignment, making excuses to get Froyo/Starbucks/Candy, Tweeting about the election and then analyzing the retweets for an hour, taking a 1:1 study time/break time ratio, planning next semester/month/week/day instead of doing my work, daydreaming, kite flying for 2 hours at a time, tandem bicycling all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge-then over it, watching Arthur because it’s “important” to revisit my childhood the 2 nights before a paper is due, finding excuses to make things I’m not going to eat, rationalizing my bad diet with stress, not exercising, talking to my fish, complaining even though I know the lack of effort is my fault, and wishing Facebook would go away on its own.

There, that’s everything…

Although…I haven’t really wasted my time on Netflix in a while…

Maybe I’ll start tomorrow.

-Adam