{"id":126,"date":"2026-01-20T17:41:34","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T17:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/?p=126"},"modified":"2026-04-13T17:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T17:40:16","slug":"winter-break-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/2026\/01\/20\/winter-break-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Break Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been quite a bit since I’ve posted a blog, but the break has been very busy for me, and the weeks leading up to it. Thus, I’ve decided I’d break winter break into a couple of parts so it’s not word vomit and a novel’s length long.<\/p>\n

Before break even started, I had finals week. (Of course, after every semester we have that,) But all my finals were scheduled at the end of the week, so I had to stay until the very last moment. One was for my acting class, and my other final was for my educational psychology class. My acting class wasn’t very hard at all. I studied for a while and got it done pretty quickly. The other one I studied for a long time, and still couldn’t seem to do very well in the end. Turns out the study guide we were given wasn’t very detailed. I still got a 35\/50 on it, but that’s still a lot wrong. I’m a little mad at that, but I mean, the past is the past for a reason.<\/p>\n

I’d also been stressing about trying to get an article done for the Daily Iowan during finals, but the due date was pushed back, luckily. So I didn’t have to do that for a bit, or at least until I returned from break. It was nice not to have much to do for the newspaper over break, and it gives me a way to ease myself back into it.<\/p>\n

After that, my dad picked me up on Saturday and took me back to his house. We stopped by my Papa’s, whose house was on the way, and had lunch with him. We drove back, and I quickly settled into my room again. It was nice to be back in bed, but it felt oddly strange at the same time. I looked through my closet again, and tried on clothes that honestly I forgot I had, and will probably take them back for my second semester as well.<\/p>\n

\"making<\/a>Around this time, I also started to work again at the local grocery store. I’ve worked there ever since I was 14, and oddly enough, continue to work there during breaks. The pay isn’t bad, I’ve made some friends, and I enjoy that quite a bit. I caught up with some of the co-workers there I hadn’t seen, and locals of my hometown, while I checked out their groceries.<\/p>\n

It was Christmas time as well, so I made some hot cocoa for my family. Not in the pre-packed slop, of course, but actually melted chocolate. I didn’t milk a cow or anything, so I guess I didn’t make<\/strong> it fully. Unless you count grabbing a carton of milk from the store, making it myself. But I was actually really proud of myself since I never made hot chocolate before. I have cooked and baked, and I realized it’s not really all that hard. If I had a kitchen in my dorm room, I think I’d totally be cooking all the time. I did with Gill and Anna earlier in the semester, but haven’t really gotten around to it when all the stress of classes racked up upon everything else in my life.<\/p>\n

\"shopping<\/a>My brother, my sister, and I went shopping with our mom’s boyfriend’s kids. (Long explanation, I know.) We got some presents for eachother and tried to conceal them in the same car. Not really the brightest of Ideas, but hey. I got to pick my gifts out from my brother, and he bought me two nice jackets I’m sure to wear a lot. One was a leather jacket, and one was a brown jacket. While I was looking, I also found a nice sweater to layer under the leather jacket, as well as a letterman jacket. It really made me look like a cartoon bully, so I had to buy it. I’ll wear that too, of course. I had to put on the aviator glasses I still had in my jeep from the summer, and it really put the outfit together. Maybe, I don’t know. Someone be honest and tell me if the fit is not hard.<\/p>\n

\"petting<\/a>After that, I went to my mom’s house and had dinner, and got to see my pets again. Dinner was pretty good, with lots of dinner rolls. That’s the way to my heart, some nice dinner rolls and butter. And I guess my dog’s too, since he was rolling all over the ground wanting bites of my food. I’m pretty sure he’s been spoiled by my mom. Same with my cat Miele. (I named him after the Miele G5000 Series 24 Inch Wide 16 Place Setting Panel Ready Energy Star Certified Built-In Top Control Dishwasher.) But my mom refuses to call him that, so he’s “Officially” Sylvester. But that’s a boring name, so I still call him Miele.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We got to open presents at her house, and I got some nice stuff. Another jacket, some skin care products, some money that I desperately needed for college, as well as some treats I like. We also all got some fuzzy blankets. I’ll use that in my dorm a lot, most likely. I’ll probably get around to using and eating all of it soon. I still have yet to use any of my gifts besides the jackets from my brother. I watched my siblings open their presents as well, and we all played Roblox and Qatan. It was a fun time hanging out with them like old times. We hardly get to now, since my brother is off at Wash-U and my sister’s in high school still, and I’m off at Iowa. I don’t get to see the other kids as often, either, so it’s nice to see them.<\/p>\n

I’m almost at 1000 words, and I’m sure it’s tiring to read all of this in one block. So, I guess continue reading to the next part if you’re interested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been quite a bit since I’ve posted a blog, but the break has been very busy for me, and the weeks leading up to it. Thus, I’ve decided I’d break winter break into a couple of parts so it’s not word vomit and a novel’s length long. Before break even started, I had finals week. (Of course, after every semester we have that,) But all my finals were scheduled at the end of the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/brody\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}