NEWS FLASH: SNOW DAY!

Yes, yes. I really didn’t think they had snow days in college, but we did! According to Joan, the Queen of Kaufman, it is only the second time in twenty years. Other than being a snow day it was just a great day overall. The first order of business on a day off is sleep, always, no questions asked. So after a extended nap, a stroll down to the ol’ dining hall became a gourmet experience. They were serving one of my favorite meals, Country Fried Steak, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy.

Normally, I would have gone back upstairs after lunch and read Socrates or Plato for my History of Ideas class in the afternoon, but alas, SNOW DAY! Instead we played an exhilarating game of Mario Party. I would like to brag about how awesome I am, but Steve won. He has a secret, one that I must know.

To continue our Snow Day Celebrations, we had a Snow Day Dinner at Denny’s. Even at 6 at night, a Denny’s breakfast has the ability to be the most appetizing thing in the world. And sometimes you just have to get away from cafeteria food. Even though most days the food on campus is good, a ‘real meal’ is sometimes needed. To top it off, an impromptu Dance Party occurred on the drive back to campus.

At this point, even I would have called it a good day, but it wasn’t over! My friend Melony and I, decided to document the snow day by walking around campus. Apparently, Residence Life sponsored a Snow Man Building contest. We found some very interesting ones. After our snowman hunt, we wanted to have a snow day standard, A SNOWBALL FIGHT! We gathered forces and fought to the bitter (and cold) end. As with any war, there were casualties: Erika got a nosebleed, Steve’s hat was lost, and my pride was bruised.

After all wounds were healed and hands were warmed, the ‘crew’ settled in for a movie, but not me. I went home this weekend for the first time since Christmas Break (which ended January 1^st for us). I have learned to appreciate weekends home because of: Free Laundry (sometimes done by wonderful moms), Free Groceries, Food (Both Free and Good). It is also really nice to just relax sometimes. It can be hard to just ‘chill’ sometimes at school. There seems like there is always something to do. That is why I love living being able to get home in 35 minutes with good traffic.

Things have been pretty eventful. I have many things to blog about, so maybe I’ll do another one later this week. Until then you should check out one of my favorite bands right now, All Time Low. They are on iTunes too!

And Thank You to Melony for the pictures!

I didn’t realize how long it had been since I had written my last blog. D-term, the Holidays and the start of a new term have all passed.

There are so many things going on right now. It’s crazy. There about 12 things ‘up in the air’ right now. I just know that they will probably come down all as one, whether good or bad.

Right now outside of classes, clubs and activities, and that thing called a social life; I spend most of my remaining waking minutes (I usually don’t have hours) looking for a job that will give me some decent income.

Getting away from the boring things, I’m really excited for the next few weeks. The weekend of the 8^th, I get to go to the Illinois Residence Hall Association Conference at Augustana College. I am going as part of the Delegation from North Central’s RHA. The weekend long conference is full of fun activities and programming sessions. We will learn about new programs to bring back to NCC, and just cool ways to make events more fun. I can’t wait.

I’m also excited because soon we might be heading to Chicago to go ice skating at Millennium Park. I love the fact that Chicago is only a short train ride away, and you can get a weekend pass for $5! Other than that, right now its just school work and taking care of the many things that I do.

That’s it. My first term at college is officially over. I’m heading home today after my last final at noon. This week…. this week. What do I say? I have gone from rock bottom to being the happiest I have been in a long time. It has been hell to say the least, but cumulative tests and term-end projects do tend to be buzz kills. I was lucky. I only had one written final this term. That’s how my week started. It didn’t go well. I’m pretty sure I bombed it. I wallowed for a good portion of the evening.

That night, I was helping my friend with a project that we had for our English class, and discovered that there were free snacks in the cafeteria for a study break. [I’m a sucker for free food] A group of us went down and ended up talking about the most random subjects. They included: Native American Children’s Stories, cable TV, stealing each other’s iTunes, root beer, identity theft, crazy RA’s, and many other things that should not be repeated.

After a delicious snack of [free] nachos, we returned to the English project. Here is where a nice night of studying turned into story worth repeating. For some reason we allowed ourselves to be taped into the room in which we were working. We knew what was going on, but choose to close the door and hope for it not to happen. If I may say, Ignorance is not Bliss.

To the right is the work in process with its creator. Steve labored many minutes on his masterpiece. Little did he know that I intended to destroy it in one pounce. After many minutes of careful deliberation with Melony (wearing the pink), we plotted our escape. Some say that I lunged through the tape like a tiger on the savanna. Others claim that I flew through with the grace of a baby hippo. Whoever you believe, we escaped.

I was ready to call it a night, but the night kept calling me. I was ignorantly unaware that Hairspray came out on DVD on Tuesday. A midnight run to Meijer later, and then we were all watching a movie until late into the night.

All of this in ONE DAY. I can barely believe it. A depressing Monday morning and afternoon nearly had me considering what schools I could transfer to after I lost my scholarships. And by that night, I had laughed more than I have in many many weeks. Now fall term and finals week is over, no more, done, complete, and concluded. I can’t wait for the new year and the new term.

[Below: Not from last night, but I was in a similar mood at the time]

I’m feeling good right now. However, if you would have talked to me last night it would have been a very different story. If anything had gone wrong last night, I probably would have just stayed in the fetal position in the lounge until Thanksgiving. It was about 11 pm on Monday when I stupidly began a ten paper due on Tuesday at 10am. The thesis, “The environment and economy cannot sustain ethanol as a supplement to gasoline.” Truly an exciting topic [not]. But it’s not that horrible, it was only a rough draft. I worked for 5 hours, showered and took a 2 hour nap, then got up at 7:30 and worked until class at ten. I would say quite an accomplishment.

Other than getting a decent paper and a few stress headaches, I also learned some things that will probably be the downfall of me. Last night I drank a 5-hour energy. [Da-dun-dun] I’m pretty sure it’s the closest thing to crack that can be sold in a vending machine. The label said it was lemon-lime flavored, it lied. Thank god Michelle had told me that they taste horrible, or I would not have been prepared. Some Strawberry Ice Bubble Tea washed it down and cleansed the palette. I soon felt the effects. I went from wanting to take a nap and just say screw everything to, I kid you not, running up and down the halls, yelling barely ten minutes later. You might say, well that sounds great, you had enough energy to get everything done, I did. But now, I’ve discovered that 5-hour energy works. A new tool in my procrastination toolbox [Facebook, Instant Messenger, Xbox, Random Walks and sleep were previously already in the toolbox]. I know that its only November, but I am making a New Year’s Resolution to kick my procrastinating habits in the butt. I really should have learned better in high school.

First off, sorry. I don’t have any decent pictures from this week. I’m thinking about buying a camera soon. But we’ll see.

The past 2 weeks have been pretty random. The Friday before Halloween, The Residence Hall Association sponsored Prom from Hell, which was a costumed Dance party with food and Halloween activities. We danced the night away with the wicked witch, a ‘cereal’ killer, and the whole Sailor Moon crew. I could barely walk after that night because of all the activity. But alas, we continued. I ended up eating the leftover pizza and playing Mario Party with Steve and Joe our Area Hall Director until 2 in the morning. Needless to say, I slept in the next day. The randomness continued throughout the week. The Tuesday before Halloween, I was doing homework and got a text that simply read. “Waffles!” So, we headed out to Omega, a 24 hour restaurant in the Hinsdale area. I have been told that the banana pancakes were delicious.

Halloween, yes you guessed it, continued with the randomness. Ok, I have not lived in walking distance of a Chipotle before, and I was not aware that if you dress like a burrito [i.e. Make a foil hat] you get a free burrito on Halloween. We didn’t care if it was free or not, we wanted Chipotle. After visiting two packed Chipotles, we lost our appetite for the glorious goodness of burritos and settled for the terrific tastiness of Panera. The night was actually calm, it was too cold to go trick or treating, or so I was told. The night consisted of The Game of Life- SpongeBob Edition followed by apple cider to get in the fall mood. That was a quite weird time, things settled down for a little while.

That is until the radio station, 93.9 The Lite, became The Holiday Lite. Yes, my friends, Christmas Music! Christmas is by FAR the greatest holiday in the history of man. In accordance with this fact, I have already decorated my room with a 3 foot tree, garland, and red, green and white lights. And, I’m happy to say that it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Hopefully I will have pictures up later this week. My laptop is being a little weird.

Many people have yelled at me because they believe that I am ignoring Thanksgiving. And my response, Thanksgiving is the tailgate of Christmas. At Thanksgiving, you find out who your not going to invite to the holiday party, you start stretching your stomach in preparation, make a batch of egg nog [non-alcoholic] just to make sure you have the recipe down, and talk to everyone to find out what your going to buy them for Christmas. Thanksgiving is a test run of Christmas. A rough draft if you will.

The Final will be due December 25^th.

My name is Mike Russell, and yes, I really do.  My problem: I never want to leave NCC!  Lucky for me I’m a freshman so I still have quite a long time! I’m an accounting major and am hoping to get my bachelors, masters and pass the CPA exam within the next 6 years.

I like to think of myself as that kid you couldn’t put a label on. I love school, but I live for the weekends.  During the summers I read for hours and then went and played Halo for a few more.  In high school I did everything.  I was President of Mathletes and a Captain of the swim team.  I was in too many clubs to count and loved it.

I’ve only been here at NCC for 8 weeks now, but I’m already super involved.  Which is lucky for me, it is the way I like it.  Here’s what I’m involved with right now.

President of the New Student Complex Council.  Simply put, the president of the First Year Student Dorms.

Online Chair for the Relay for Life of NCC this year.

[You should probably know, I am a huge supporter of the American Cancer Society and their events, such as Relay for Life.  One of my goals in life is to work for the ACS.  Every day I rock my Relay for Life spirit with a purple bracelet.  It never comes off, really… I have a tan line.  And when it does break, no worries I have about 10 more in my room.]

Residence Hall Association

College Union Activities Board

And then I find myself helping random organizations.

That me in a nutshell.