I'M THE WINNER

I WON THE 2013 FLUHMAN BRACKET CHALLENGE.

THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME MOMENT OF MY COLLEGIATE CAREER.

I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING.

So my history professor holds a bracket challenge between all his classes and his family every winter semester. I've taken five classes from J. Spencer Fluhman and this is my third time participating in the bracket challenge.

AND I WON.

It feels quite surreal. I can hardly believe I did it. But I'm thoroughly excited about this victory. I also won the bracket challenge Peter started. All I win for that is bragging rights and it's probably pretty sad how happy it makes me that I beat Peter; he tried not to sound too disappointed about it when we hung out last night but I can tell it definitely bugged him that I won.

Basically, I can't wait to use the line, "Hey, remember that time my bracket won your competition?" in an argument with him.

Friday rain

Right now Becca and I are getting ready for our fake dates. I convinced Becca to text Kyle's twin brother Kirk and ask him to go my friend Chelsea's recital as well. Becca and I have wanted to go on a double date with them since the Murray Chick-Fil-A when Kyle called me Becca's "Kirk." (Becca had been saying how she wished I was there and Kyle commented how we seem to do everything together, hence the twin comparison.)

Here's some photo evidence of mine and Becca's fake twinship. (Possibly more to come.)

In other news, it rained a lot today! It was both awesome and notsome (the opposite of awesome if you didn't already know) because I had to walk to one of the farthest north buildings on campus for a scholarship luncheon. I did get quite wet but I also got an amazing, free lunch out of it. The rain was also super refreshing. I wore my Chacos and for some reason they make me fearless when it comes to stepping in puddles and traipsing across campus. Also, the way it smells before and after it rains is wonderful. Utah rain isn't quite as nice as Wisconsin rain but it's not terrible.

The rest of the day was spent on campus doing various things but perhaps my favorite part of the day was visiting my friend/TA Bradley so he could help me fix my paper for my Utah history class. We worked on the paper for maybe 15 or 20 minutes but I ended up being there for about an hour and a half because we got caught up talking. This is technically the third class we've taken together in the last three semesters; one class we were both students in and the other two he was the TA for. We made a pact that if I win the bracket tournament Professor Fluhman holds, I'll let him in on whatever I choose for my prize. Chances are I'll choose to go out to dinner w/ Fluhman and his awesome wife or to have Family Home Evening with the whole Fluhman family. I'm pretty excited to see if I pull out the win though. We're pretty sure I've got it locked up.

Winning that March Madness bracket challenge will probably make my entire collegiate experience feel  complete. I mean, as complete as it can be without yet having graduated.

Zelda & slacklining

My last few weekends have been super quality, all worth blogging about. (At least to me they're worth blogging about.) Let it be known that this post was started around the first week of March, meaning all of this information is now WAY OLD. I'm finally posting a lot of things that I started writing but never finished.

Friday

All my Friday classes were cancelled and the only thing I had to do was stop by the newsroom at 10 to lay out some pages for the paper. It took me all of 30 minutes and I enjoyed doing it as well. Then I worked on my publication graphics feature page project. I'm really proud of it so far. I've come to really enjoy working with InDesign and apparently I'm not as terrible at designing things as I once thought. (This is what my feature page ended up looking like though at the time of this writing it looked NOTHING like this.)

Since it was fairly warm out, especially for February, I decided to go for a run that afternoon. I got only a few blocks before my contact lens in my right eye got all fuzzy so I took it out and walked home. Luckily, I have this awesome app on my phone called the Nike Training Club. They have 30 and 45 minute workouts based on all different things, whether that be strength training, cardio or anything else you might want to do. The majority of them don't require equipment either. I did a 30 minute cardio workout in the comfort of my own home.

After showering and eating a quick, though late, lunch, it was time to watch Community with Peter. After that was over, he and I ended up, as usual, spending the whole night together. Any time we spend together is usually punctuated by the arrivals and departures of his roommates Kirk and Kyle. I've hardly seen the two of them this semester so it was really nice to hang out with the three of them. Kirk even decided to be domestic that night and made this apple pie type dessert, except for the crust he used dough for dinner rolls. It turned out spectacular.

What really took up most of our time was playing the N64 version of Zelda on Peter's computer. I'm not sure what it is about me but I have no problem watching other people play video games. It was most interesting because Kyle basically has the game memorized and would occasionally drop hints to Peter about what to do but he would never give him the entire answer of where to go/what to do; it's frustrating for Peter but great entertainment for the rest of us. By the end of the night, Kyle and Peter insisted I learn to play the game on account of how I never played it as a child. And so Peter started my own quest. I'm not terrible at video games but I'm pretty close. As entertaining as it was for Peter to play the game himself, I definitely think he had a lot more fun watching me struggle through the first two levels. Around 1 o'clock I finally called it quits.

Saturday

In the morning I did Peter a favor and kept score at his intramural basketball game. I'd never seen him play before so I enjoyed myself a lot. Peter loves basketball more than anything else in life so to see him actually doing what he constantly talks about was awesome. He's kind of really legitimately good at basketball as well.

I worked out again on Saturday and spent the rest of the day studying.

That evening a bunch of people went to this ice skating show that Lorraine was in. Mostly we went because there was free skating after it was over! Only Ben and I ended up skating but it was still quite fun. Since we were skating on the non-public rink, there was hardly anyone there and we could goof off a little more without worrying about bumping into people.

After skating Ben and I met up with our friends again and decided to go slacklining on campus. That was perhaps one of the best Saturday night activities I've ever been a part of. I've always been pretty terrible at slacklining but I actually made it all the way across that night.

After an hour of that we watched "Skyfall" at the Lava Lounge. I'd seen it before, back when it first came out in November, but was still hoping to enjoy it a second time; but alas, I fell asleep, something that hardly ever happens to me during movies. Luckily Ben was there to let me borrow his shoulder. You know you've got a good life when your friends let you fall asleep on them like that.

Another month of madness done

As yesterday was the NCCA men's basketball championships game, March Madness is officially over. This year was really fun. At first I thought my brackets were going to be terrible but I ended up doing quite well in all of my groups.

For my history class, I ended in 8th place. For the competition done by a local restaurant, I won! This Italian place did a group and I was the winner so I get a free pizza party for me and, like, 10 people. How awesome is that?! And then for the sports desk, I also won. Not a bad year by any means.

Whenever I think of March Madness, I think of my freshman year of college when I completely dominated all the boys I was in a group with. Out of the whole first round, I think I got maybe two games wrong. It was spectacular. They all kind of hated me, or so I was told by a few of them. They literally did not want to see my face in their dorm.

I also think of the last two years and how thanks to my lovely friend Jeff, I've had a place to watch games at all. On any given day of March Madness, I spent around four to six hours in his basement apartment. Sometimes it would be just the two of us; other times his roommates and other friends would be around.

I called my dad right after the tournament started and kind of yelled at him for giving me bad advice on teams, but it turned out in the end. I'll call him tonight to let him know he's taught me well.

Tis kind of a short post today, though I doubt my few readers care much about that. I'm hoping to get a lot of work done tonight on final projects and things of that sort so my last week of classes goes smoothly. I only have two actual exams, and they're on Monday and Tuesday respectively. It should be a lovely exam week.

Last YouTube video I watched: Malachi Our Friend

Ballin'

Like it's going to be news to any of you that I really like basketball but in case you were not aware: I really like basketball. Watching it, that is. (I can't play basketball to save my life.)

March Madness is practically over. The first of two Final Four match-ups occurred this afternoon with Butler taking down VCU. Soon enough Kentucky and Connecticut will do battle. At this point I have little to no preference as to who wins. If Butler won that'd be downright awesome since they're from the Horizon League, the major underdog.

Basketball has always been a part of my life, at least collegiate basketball. I remember watching games with my dad all the time when I was young. For my 16th birthday my parents even surprised me with tickets to a Marquette game. After that we always got ticket packages and went to a bunch of games every season. Now that I'm at college I really miss spending that time with my dad; I still get to watch really great games, though. (JIMMER JIMMER CHICKEN DINNER!)

This year for March Madness I was a little put off since I had no idea where I would watch any of the games besides on my computer. And how lame would that have been? Answer: REALLY LAME. Last year I had guys all around me who were watching basketball and discussing brackets and poking fun at each other's teams. This year I wasn't too optimistic since I really don't have close guy friends. Luckily, there is one really great guy in my building who decided it'd be all right if I came over to watch w/ him and his roommates. (Don't worry, he's not a stranger. We were friends before basketball times.) And so I've been going over to his apartment a lot lately. During the first few rounds of basketball I would lounge/lay on one of the couches in his living room for literally hours at a time. Like, five hours or more. It's a beautiful friendship.

So much friendship can come out of watching basketball. To me it's kind of the ultimate bonding experience. (Not going to lie: my dream date is having floor seats to a really good college basketball and getting pizza afterwards.)

In other news, how are you guys doing lately? If you're doing BEDA, how are you feeling about it so far? Good times indeed.

It is upon us

Finals are upon us. Lots and lots of finals. Well, maybe not lots. Is 4 considered a lot of finals? It feels like a lot of finals. And I'm pretty sure I've used up my quota for the words "a lot" for the entire next year.

I figured I would just take some time away from studying and write a fancy schmancy blog post. Though I guess it's not really a break since I've spent the last hour and a half studying whilst emptying my YouTube subscription box. By far the greatest thing about it was seeing all the new Ministry of Magic music videos. I've never bought a physical copy of a wizard rock CD before but I might do just that with this latest one. I love me some MoM boys, that's for sure. The House Song is kind of the greatest thing ever.

I've also spent that last hour and a half writing down the answers to a media writing study guide. Such fun. I'm going to do some Spanish now, which I actually enjoy quite a lot. I'm shooting for an A on the final and I really think I can make it happen.

I'm going to watch the Wisconsin/Marquette game now. I was going to do that instead of going to the library but then my roommate Lorraine convinced me to come to campus with her. I just hope the game is on ESPN360. [And I just found it!] I'm pretty stoked.

So back to Spanish I go. I feel like the Nosh Zone is emptier than usual but much louder. It's strange. Not a very exciting post but you know . . . That's life.

I GO HOME A WEEK FROM TODAY.

Oh, and one last note: KAYLEY AND KRISTINA COMMENTED ON MY BLOG ABOUT 5AG. I LOVE THEM.