Winter Break

I was just thinking about our long winter break and I realized that I need something to do to keep myself occupied. I am thinking about going back to work. Last summer I worked for a construction company working with the crew was a memorable experience. But I hear working construction during the winter is brutal, you can’t wear gloves while using most of the tools and you end up eating lunch in a car with heat blasting. I have to say it was good money though and I would not mind making another 1500$ over winter break. I also have the option of going with my friend to Deep Creak Lake for a week or two over the break. He owns a house there and is planning on taking a large crew of people there. I can only imagine how messy that house will get with six 18 year old guys living there for a week. Would be a crazy place to have a party though, its right next to the lake and we could even throw a party out on his boat one night. That would be super fun but I might get tired of being around the guys after a week. Its still open for discussion but I know I need to find something to do over that 5 week period or else I will get terribly bored. Yet again it is a while away, I have Thanksgiving to look forward to even before I start to think about winter break and oh yeah a little thing called final exams in between that I need to focus on.

We Did It!

I will always remember where I was at eleven o’clock on November 4th when our country named its first black president. This is something that I never thought would have happened or certainly not for a long time. President Elect Obama came into our homes and won over the hearts of many Americans over the last two years and now he is the president elect of the United States of America. This is monumental for our country and now we can say to any child that he can truly do anything he desires in life. Barack Obama has inspired millions of people and shown us that no goal is out of reach. I cannot wait until January 20th when Obama is sworn into office and begins to fix the shit hole that the republicans have left us in. In my opinion he needs to first and foremost fix the economy and lower the unemployment numbers. Secondly he needs to end the war in Iraq responsibly. He has said he wants to take troops out of Iraq and send them to Afghanistan to eliminate the head of Al Quada, Osoma Bin Ladin. He is the head of this terrorist organization and I do not understand why we were not always fighting in Afghanistan, it makes no sense to me. Thirdly Obama needs to fix healthcare and implement some sort of universal insurance for everyone. Those should be his top priorities and he needs to take advantage of having control of congress on his side.

On The Eve Of......

I lasted so long without getting sick but it has finally hit me. All of my roommates have been sick for almost a month and I have resisted getting sick by taking a number of different vitamins and anti-bodies but I have finally given in. I started to feel the sore throat last Friday morning and only got worse throughout the weekend. Now it has fully hit me; cough, congestion and I don’t know how else to explain it but my whole body just feels tired. At the moment I am eating soup and watching the pre-election polls as well as analysis’s on CNN. From what I hear 1/3 of Americans have already voted from early polls but the lines will still be extremely long tomorrow. I hope people do not leave the polls just because of the long lines. People should clear their schedules tomorrow and even skip work if they have to because this is an historic election. I wonder if John McCain or Barack Obama will get any sleep tonight awaiting tomorrow, I know I wouldn’t if I was in their situation. And what does the losing candidate do after tomorrow; it sure will be hard for him to go back to ‘normal’ life after this dog fight of a campaign for presidency. For John McCain I think this is the last time he will ever consider running for president if he does not win where as I think Obama has many chances in the future if this is not his time now. Whatever happens it will be extremely interesting.

Cooking

I have to say that the one thing that I miss the most while at college is not being able to cook. I love to cook and it is one of my favorite hobbies. The other weekend I went home and cooked a piece of flank steak, fried some potatoes and prepared a nice house salad. It was so much fun. My dad first taught me to cook when I was ten years old and I have loved cooking with him ever since. Yet I hate cleaning! That is the great thing about cooking with my father is that he is my sue chef and cleans up after me. For a long time I wanted to go into culinary arts until one summer when my parents got me cooking lessons from a professional chef and I realized how much prep work goes into cooking dinner for dozens of people every night and not even being able to enjoy the food you cook. From that moment I decided that I would only cook as a hobby for my own pleasure and the pleasure of friends of family. I cannot wait until I get a kitchen in an apartment. I am so jealous of my brother because he just moved into an apartment in Boston and he gets to cook all the time. Also cooking for yourself and not eating out (e.g. the dining hall) is much healthier for you. I love eating balanced meals that I prepare myself and will continue to do so.

Thanksgiving and Beyond

I cannot wait for Thanksgiving, not only to eat great food but to see my high school friends who I have not seen for four months. I am planning on throwing a thanksgiving party at my house for my friends. It will be great to catch up with them and will be a great preview for winter break. Winter break will be amazing, I just realized the other day that we have five weeks off. That is quite a jump from what I am used to. In high school we only had 2 weeks off for winter break. I was thinking that maybe I should take an online class during those five weeks and get a few credits under my belt. Tyler was telling me the other day how hard the online classes are which gave me second thoughts. I am not sure how well I would learn without having a physical teacher or professor in front of me. I have learned that I am an extremely visual learner and I am not sure how well I would do at listening to a lecture and not ‘seeing’ the lecture. I guess it is worth a shot. Either way I will probably take another class over the summer to get a few credits at the Towson University. I want to keep ahead of the credit curve so that my options are open come junior or senior year if I want to do a work project for the Business School.

Electoral College

I really wish that I could have voted in a swing state of this upcoming election. Voting in Maryland is a give away to the Democrats. As one of my friends said the other day “even if Brad Pitt ran for the democratic office he would still win Maryland. It is very true that Maryland is an extremely blue state along with New York and California but I have to keep telling myself that my vote still does count even when I vote in Maryland. I sometimes wonder how different it would be if we used the popular vote and not the electoral college to determine our president. There have been a few times where the popular vote did not result in that president winning the presidency. That seems strange to me, that you can get the majority of the vote yet you do not win. This is prominent in the 2000 Bush Gore election. Gore won the popular vote yet because of a miscount in Florida the delegates voted for Bush and Bush won the presidency. I wonder what it would take to reform the system to go by the popular vote and not by the electoral college. Some say that it would push candidates to campaign in strictly cities with a high density of voters. I think that we need to push to get rid of the electoral college and implement the popular vote.

From Last to First

I was so glad that the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series because as I have stated before, I hate the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays lead off this year with change. They first changed their uniforms from lime green to dark blue and changed their names from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to the Tampa Bay Rays. This leads me to my next point which is that the Orioles are getting new uniforms next season! Maybe this will change our luck and maybe the Orioles can follow in the Rays footsteps of last to first in one season. Yet I highly doubt this because in reality it takes more than just a new set of uniforms to change around the abilities of a team. The Rays reformatted their entire pitching staff along with new hitting prospects who turned out to be magnificent. The funny thing is that the entire Rays team’s salary was just over that of a single Yankees player. Just goes to show that money cannot buy everything in life. Yet this Rays team will probably sell most of their players over the upcoming years because now all of the major league baseball has seen their talent and will pay much higher salaries for these once underrated players. Who knows, maybe the Orioles will pick up a few of these Tampa Bay Rays, we sure have enough money for them, its just a question of whether or not our idiot owner is willing to put some cash aside for them.