Wow, can you believe it?  Sometime within the next twelve hours Santa Clause is going to visit my house, and probably yours, too, and he’s going to deliver boxes full of fun things, like school supplies!  He’s going to fly in on his reindeer, park on the roof, find a way into our house—we don’t have a chimney, but he still gets in somehow—eat our food, and then he’s going to shove some junk underneath our Christmas tree.  What a cool guy.

            I wonder if I ever believed any of that baloney, that stuff about an obese altruist, dressed in red, flying around the world giving stuff away for free.  Little kids who do believe must have mixed feelings about it.  They have to.  On the one hand they’ve got some really cool guy coming to give them free stuff, but on the other they’ve got some guy, some suspicious, surreptitious character whom they’ve never seen, breaking into their house.  That has to be creepy having thoughts of some big, hairy old man lurking around, nosing about your belongings.  Sure he leaves boxes of things for you to mess with when you wake up, but maybe that’s just to divert your attention away from the real reasons he’s there.  Maybe he does other things.  Weird things.  Things like his twin did in Dean Koontz’s Santa’s Twin, or whatever it’s called.  Such thoughts lend a sense of unease to the holiday.  Let’s change the subject.   

            So I found my grades for my first semester on the internet.  Seeing my grades was kind of like opening a really big Christmas present and finding nothing but coal inside.  Lots of coal.  (Merry Christmas, Michael!).  Let’s change the subject.  

            Let’s talk about being thankful for what we have, for isn’t that what Christmas is all about?  I think it is.  Or maybe I’m thinking about Thanksgiving.  That’s possible since it wasn’t too long ago.  Yeah, Christmas is about sharing and giving and caring and all that fun stuff.  There’s no reason not to be thankful as well, though.  I’m going to make it really easy and just say it’s about being a good person.  Should be cake for most of us, huh?

            Merry Christmas.  I hope you have an awesome day.

Posted by Michael Richmond at 09:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

            The great thing about coming home at the end of the semester is getting to see all of my friends and family members who are still in high school stress out over their final exams.  My sister, for example, is studying, as I write this, for an AP U.S. History exam she says she’s going to fail.  I put my college study skills to use and helped her organize all of her stuff and told her what, exactly, to study, and how to do it.  She’s currently searching the internet, frantically, for the answers to questions asked of her on her study guide.  I found her situation humorous.  I took a picture.  See?  

            I visited the high school earlier this week, and I have been running with the cross country team, and all I’ve been hearing from these poor kids is how difficult their finals are, how little sleep they’re getting, and how stressful this week is for them.  Boohoo.  I mean, I’m sure I complained just as much—actually, now that I think of it, I'm not sure I did—but I think it’s safe to say that a week of finals in college is incomparable to high school in difficulty and level of stress. 

            I don’t mean to downplay their anxiety, of course.  I mean, it is all relative, and once they’re in college they’ll see it the same way; they’ll see high school final exams really aren’t a big deal.  Until then, though, they’re going to continue to interrogate each other, hoping their friends memorized some questions from exams they'd already taken; they’re going to continue to calculate and re-calculate their semester averages, using those averages to figure out exactly what they have to score on an exam to keep their A; and they’re going to focus on the gossip and the hearsay, leading them to imagine impossible exams they heard were “ridiculous!” or “complete bullcrap!” or something like that, and they’re going to get themselves all worked up.  I love the drama.  I loved high school.   

Posted by Michael Richmond at 09:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

                 So, I’ve experienced an entire semester of college, approximately four months of my post-secondary education, and I’m no different than I was before I left.  What a disappointment!  I was expecting—or hoping for, rather—radical changes in me, something really noticeable.  I wanted to be a completely different person, or, if not different, better in some way.  Yeah, I wanted a revision, a personality augmentation.  I wanted to become Michael Richmond Version 2.0, smarter, funnier, and backward compatible.  Yes, that’s right, backward compatible.  What that implies with regard to human beings, I don’t know.      

But no, I’m my same old boring self.  I just sit here and do the same old things in the same old ways.  Will the situation be similar after next semester is over?  What about another year?  Four years?  Am I doomed to remain stuck at this level of me-ness for the rest of my life?  You know what?  On second thought, if you know the answer to that question, please keep it to yourself.  I don’t really want to know.  I don’t think I’d be able to cope with the truth. 

Note:  The preceding paragraphs are baloney…kind of.  I haven’t changed, but I didn’t expect to, and I don’t really mind being the same old me.  It’s fun being me, actually.  See, look at me having fun, wasting space in the blogosphere with my unsubstantial drivel.  Yippee! 

Posted by Michael Richmond at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

            Wednesday evening I took a trip with my Freshmen Tutorial class to Indianapolis, where we dined on some legitimate German cuisine and watched and discussed the cinematic adaptation of Slaughterhouse-Five.  We had our meal at the Rathskeller in the Athenaeum, which was actually designed by Kurt Vonnegut’s grandfather, Clemens Vonnegut.  Oh yeah, for those of you who don’t know, my tutorial was over the life and work of Kurt Vonnegut. 

            After the movie there was a short presentation/discussion during which a few people, who were near Dresden at the time of its firebombing, spoke a little bit about their experiences during the war.  It was a very interesting night, and it was a nice summation of the class, I thought. 

            Oh, and I’m home now.  The first semester is officially over, finals and all.  It’s nice being able to relax after a very stressful week of studying and…doing all those other stressful things I had to do throughout the week—I can’t remember what they were.  So now the Holidays are coming, and that should be fun.  Until then, though, I’m just going to sit back in my awesome chair and repose.

Posted by Michael Richmond at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

            The end of the semester is nigh, but this week, finals week, is dragging on and on and doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to end.  It’s only just now Wednesday morning, but it feels like it should be Friday, or Saturday, or some time next month.  It’s not that the week is difficult or anything, it’s simply a matter of wanting to be done.  I mean, come on, classes are over, let me be.  I guess I’m just really eager for a break sans academic obligation.  Thanksgiving break was nice, but I still had to worry about doing homework.  Not this time.  I can’t wait. 

            Alas, I am going to have to wait.  I have my second final, one over my Freshman Tutorial on Kurt Vonnegut, in about eight hours.  My first, on Monday, was for Biology.  I think it went pretty well.  I passed, at least.  I have a paper due later today for my Philosophy final, and I have an Intro to Poetry exam on Friday, and then I’m D-O-N-E, done.  I’ll be doing my celebratory drive home some time Friday afternoon, hopefully, and then I’ll revert to my pre-college state of dreamy do-nothingness.  Oh, how nice it will be. 

            I won’t let my thoughts on my soon-to-be-experienced future at home prevent me from doing a good job this week, however.  I’m going to be studying and all that stuff.  I won’t shirk responsibility yet.  Well, maybe a little bit, but not too much.  Just kidding, I’ll do my best.  Promise.   

Posted by Michael Richmond at 01:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I just realized I’ve spent a good-sized amount of money this semester.  Actually, I don’t think “good-sized” will suffice; it was more along the lines of exorbitant.  Yeah, and it was all on silly, trivial things like snacks and meals and clothes from Hollister.  Yeah, I really regret that last one.

The random trips to the gas station are what really did me in, though.  There were weeks where I would go every night, spending maybe five dollars.  For those of you not mathematically inclined, that’s about thirty bucks in a week on unsatisfying gas station food.  Also, since we are not provided with meals on the weekends, and since we’re too lazy to cook on our own, we go out to dine at one of the many fine restaurants located in Crawfordsville.  I’ve bought tons of pizza, many Subway subs, and because Buffalo Wild Wings opened not too long ago, a deluge of wings. 

Oh!  The things I could have done with all that wasted money!  Some advice: be frugal.  Sure, it’s fine to indulge yourself every once in while, but don’t allow it to become habit.  Future college students, you need to appropriate a specific, small sum of money to spend for each week.  Save the rest of your money.  Put it in the bank.  Let it grow.  That way, many years from now, maybe when you’re eighty or so, you can take it all out and blow it on a Fabergé Egg.  Yeah, elaborately designed, diamond-studded eggs.  Just as trivial, but at least you’ll have something to show for it.  A trophy of sorts.  Something people will look at and say, “I should have saved my money.”         

Posted by Michael Richmond at 04:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

            The first semester’s worth of classes has finally ended.  With one week remaining, all I have to worry about are a few final exams and a couple papers.  This is it, the last stretch.  Ahhh…relief—it’s been a long semester.  

            What did I do to celebrate?  I took a nap, of course.  Two weeks of staying up until five in the morning or so can take a lot out of a guy, especially a guy who really enjoys his sleep.  So, yeah, I napped, and then I took part in a Kappa Sigma snowball fight, a good way of blowing off some steam.

            So we all played in the snow for a bit, and when the fun ended we went to see a play.  It was a funny little play about an angry elf at Macy’s.  I laughed.  All the laughing made us hungry, so we went to Buffalo Wild Wings and had a respectable little meal.  Now I’m worn out and don’t know what to write.  Maybe I should talk about all of the studying I’m going to be doing this weekend.  No, I’m not going to talk about that.  It makes me tired just thinking about it.  I need a good night’s rest first.  Maybe tomorrow. 

Posted by Michael Richmond at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Oh! Glorious day!  It has snowed! It’s time to forget about everything, drop everything and play, explore, and frolic about every which way through nature’s splendorous white confetti that’s falling from the sky.  At least, that’s what I’m going to do. 

                 Snowballs, snowmen, snow angels, snow forts: just a few of the great things that can be done with this amazing form of precipitation.  And the stuff’s free.  Yes, it’s free, and there’s a lot of it.  It blankets everything, making it accessible as hell; there’s no reason you all shouldn’t be outside right now playing in it.  Take advantage of the stuff; it only falls a few times a year, and if our globe keeps on warming up there’s the chance that it could fall even less frequently than that, or perhaps not at all—and what an inconvenient truth that is. 

                 Being that it was the first snowfall I’ve seen here at Wabash, I decided to walk around the campus and take some pictures.  One of my silly fraternity brothers tagged along, carrying with him a snowball, a sort of rarity for him since he’s from a place where snow seldom falls, that sad, sad place being Texas.  There are a few denizens of Texas here at Kappa Sigma, actually, and they all seemed pretty excited to see the snow.  I would be, too, if I came from a place where the average snowfall, in inches, is very, very close to zero. 

                 I can’t imagine a winter without snow.  It must be hard for people who live in climates not conducive to snowfall, what with all the movies out that glorify it, making it look like so much fun.  Movies like A Christmas Story, Snow Dogs, and Groundhog Day must make it hard; or movies like The Thing, The Shining, and Fargo.  Yeah, it must be hard for them to see those.

Posted by Michael Richmond at 04:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

            I watched an amazing movie today, one I used to watch all of the time when I was younger.  This movie is animated, and it’s about dinosaurs.  The film was directed by a man named Done Bluth, the same guy responsible for such films as All Dogs go to Heaven, An American Tail, and The Pebble and the Penguin.  Yeah, I watched The Land Before Time.

            I found this movie along with a couple of Bluth’s other works at Walmart last week for $7.50 a piece.  How could I pass that up?  What a deal.  I’m probably going to have to go back so I can buy some more.

            It was pretty nostalgic watching it.  I was surprised I could remember nearly every scene, as well as a lot of the dialogue.  I must have watched it quite a few times back in the day.  That’s not really surprising, though, because it’s a heck of a movie. 

            I really doubt anyone will find any of that interesting, but hey, this is important to me.  Seriously.  I really like children’s movies.  I’m probably going to try and find The Brave Little Toaster on DVD next, because that was my all-time favorite growing up and I’d really like to own a copy of it now.  And The Jungle Book has a new deluxe edition available, complete with the shiny packaging and everything.  Yep, all the bells and whistles.  A must-have for any college student.  I also want Ferngully.  Ahhh!...what’s my problem?

Posted by Michael Richmond at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)