From the basement of Sam Koelbl's

Well, it’s that time again. You’re bored, Youtube isn’t doing it for you, there’s nothing too exciting on the Facebook gossip grapevine, and you’re not interested in freezing your anatomy off. So here you are, hot chocolate in hand, probably wearing some old sweats and a T-shirt you bought to help some club raise money. Maybe there’s a blanket involved. Perhaps a cookie or two? Actually, if you don’t have these things, I think you should go get them. They sound like good things to have while reading a blog. I’ll wait. Heck, I’m going to go get those things! Meet you back here in 5 minutes.

Ok, I didn’t find any hot chocolate (who are these people?! I suppose I should explain that I’m at Sam Koelbl’s right now.), but there are some fantastic cookies in the pantry…well, said are cookies are in my stomach now.

Al Gore, you might be on to something
It’s January. That’s a month- according to tradition- that’s cold. My body sort of expects to shiver in January. So when I stepped out of my house on Tuesday of last week and found myself in a beautiful spring day (sunny, 70 degrees, birds twittering their happy little spring songs, etc., etc.), I got concerned. Really concerned. I’ll grant that I’m much further south right now than I usually am during the winter months, but 70 degrees do not all belong together in the same day in January. I don’t care where you are, winter is the off-season for degrees. They’re supposed to go on vacation, maybe work on their hobbies, read a book. You know, get rested before summertime. That’s just the way it works. So on Wednesday, when I caught a couple of degrees lounging on my front step, I gave them $40 and told them to high tail it for Minnesota because I can thing of few frigid folk in need of some Fahrenheit. Hopefully, they’re on their way.

Things got a little more normal later in the week when legitimate SNOW fell on Baltimore! I, suffering from chronic snow withdrawal, made it my mission to get in all things winter on that blessed Thursday. I made a snowman in the park with the help of a dog named Booker T. Washington (not kidding at all), and his owner, Andrea. Booker wasn’t all that much help really, he just made sure that no one who’s savvy to the old adage about colored snow would try to eat the snowman. Thanks, Booker.

Once my snowman was complete, a group of kids in the park decided it’d be appropriate to toss a couple snow balls in my general direction. Little did they know, I am an accomplished and highly decorated snow ball hurler. I may have gotten slightly carried away when I whitewashed a 9 year-old who tried to sneak up behind me, but since neither frostbite nor hypothermia was an imminent threat, I should be ok. Alright, alright, I didn’t actually whitewash a 9 year-old. I just threw that line in for the sake of paragraph length. Those of you who were envisioning me laughing victoriously while rubbing a wee boy’s face in a mound of snow should be ashamed of yourselves. Imaginary 9 year-olds do not deserve such treatment. Please take a moment to imagine yourselves apologizing to the child. Bullies.

After the snowball fight (that part really did happen. I dominated!), I was invited to take a few runs down the big hill in Patterson Park by the Pagoda (yeah, we have one of those. Jealous?). The snow was a little too sticky for a good ride, but it was fun. Not late-night sledding on the old ski hill with a bottle of firewater fun, but a wholesome fun that definitely beat what my roommates were up to at the time (XBOX 360 something or other.)

Wii is not for me
I took some time on Friday to explore the other side of Baltimore with Conor (TfA person) and some of his roommates (Not TfA people). We started our night with some shots of Amarula and a few rounds of Wii Sports games. As it turns out, I am not a particularly good bowler unless the object I’m holding is an actual bowling ball. The remote shape just doesn’t seem to trigger my innate bowling instincts. I am slightly worse at Wii tennis, and MUCH worse at Wii golf. Stupid Wii.
Once we left the game console and wandered out into the balmy Baltimore evening, I suspected that our BACs might rise to pre-graduation levels. I should have stretched more. A few games of beer pong in the back of a hole-in-the-wall bar, some shots and one or two or seven beers later, I was relatively certain that up was down and vice versa. As it turns out, I was wrong. Down is still down.

The mouse in my house
It’s been a few weeks now since I mentioned the little bugger who’s been keeping me up with his midnight snack scavenging. Reginald (I decided a nice name might get Reginald to act a little more polite), recently moved downstairs after I plugged the holes I suspected he was using to get upstairs. Reggie was last seen perusing through the overflow garbage in one of the other roommate’s room. The garbage was promptly thrown out and replaced with an excessive amount of rat poison. Reggie has not been heard from since although I suspect that he’s still out and about. Stay tuned for further developments.

Finals week!!
The students finished up their final exams this past week. Of the 90 students I teach, about 70 showed up for my test. Of those 70, about 15 passed. That’s slightly up from last year. Not enough that I can claim to have done anything particularly spectacular, but hey, at least I didn’t screw things up terribly!

Johns Hopkins
I’m still doing the graduate student thing out at JHU. I decided to finish the year’s worth of school, just in case I want to finish up my Masters. So Wednesday nights will be unbearably long, but I’m making myself stronger because of it. As some dead German philosopher said “that which does not kill us, only makes us stronger.” I don’t know why I’m taking advice from a guy who’s strength clearly must have ran out, but I’ve got to take it from somebody.

Shout Outs
Lil Buddy: Your Turn!
J-Bo: Back Door Slam!!! Listen to it and Love it!
Elise: You make me smile a smile I’ve never smiled before.
Tom: Get any good spam lately?
Johnny B: Infinite Jest is LONG! We both know what joke you might to build off that
sentence. Lies are not funny.