Thanksgiving

Last week, I lamented the changing of the seasons. This week, I’d like to bring up one of the good things about fall: Thanksgiving. I’m not very sentimental about holidays, but I do like Thanksgiving. It has none of the religious or commercial associations that just about every other holiday has. It’s just about good food and good company. And a week off school.

A week off school. School isn’t hard for me--it sure beats working. But the responsibilities that come with 15 credits can feel like a burden after a while. From Wednesday through today I had four tests and quizzes. I deserve a break. So I plan to spend a few days of the next week not thinking about school at all. I’m going to read what I want to read, watch movies, and take naps.

Back to Thanksgiving, though. The past couple of years I’ve just gone to see my mother at her condo in Winter Park. I’d get there for dinner, and stay the night. That was okay, but it’s a long drive to just stay one night, and one night is usually enough. I have to take most of my family in small doses, or else I get a little cranky. This year, however, I’ve been excused from the obligatory visit, and so am going down to Westcliffe, Colorado to see a friend I haven’t seen in a while. He’s a chef, so the food should be good, and the company will be too. I’m even going to stay for two nights.

In closing, I’ll list a few things I’m thankful for, even though I don’t always seem to deserve them. I try to think of these things more than just once a year, but I make sure to think about them a little extra around Thanksgiving.

I’m thankful for my health, even though I abuse it constantly.

I’m thankful for my freedom, even though I’ve never voted.

I’m thankful for the friends I have, even though I don’t always call as often as I should.

I’m thankful for the job I have, even though I slack off on occasion.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to be at CSU, even though I’ve been thinking about having this next week off for the past month.

Seasons

The change in seasons has made itself apparent now, even though it is about 70 degrees today (you’ve got to love the Front Range weather). We’ve had some frosty mornings, and even some snow flurries a couple weeks ago. Most of the colors are gone, and the trees are bare in my neighborhood. I’m just waiting for one maple tree to finish before I rake the leaves.

I like the early part of fall for the great colors and the milder temperatures after the heat of summer, but with it comes a sense of foreboding. I know the cold is coming soon, and winter weather is on the way. I hate winter. I was raised in the Midwest, where you learn to hate winter in a way that makes you curse it just like you wanted to curse the school bully you were afraid to stand up to. I hate the short days and the gray that skies put me in a funk, making me lethargic and depressed until the sun comes out again. I hate the snow that makes it hard to walk or bike to school. The snow that quickly turns to ugly gray/black drifts piled along the roads.

And the cold. Oh, how I hate the cold. It just seeps in, and grips me from the inside. Even in the house, at a temperature that feels quite comfortable any other time of the year, I rarely feel warm. This I attribute to my seven winters and a few summers in Phoenix after escaping the Midwest. My blood thinned out down there, and it can’t seem to thicken up again.

Winter gets me down, but as winters go, they aren’t so bad here in Fort Collins. A lot of times, the snow melts shortly after it falls (except for last winter’s freak storms), and the mountains look just as pretty in winter as they do in summer. I made a pretty good seasonal compromise in picking Fort Collins for a year-round home. Even so, I wish I could have late May all year long.

Spring Registration

Ah, the joys of registering for classes. It seems that the further I get into my academic program, the more difficult it is to get into classes that are becoming more and more important for me to take now. I spent several hours last week putting together my ideal schedule. I was pretty excited about all my classes, too. I even had a backup plan in case I couldn’t get into the particular section that I wanted. All I had to do was wait until I got home today at noon to register. Then, on a final check this morning, I discovered that my most important class to have was completely full. And here’s the thing that’s kind of pissing me off: completely full means that only 36 students are registered for the class. Now I don’t know how many journalism majors there are at CSU, but this is a class we all have to take as part of the major, and as a prerequisite to a couple of other courses, so I’d wager there’s probably a damn sight more than 36 people wanting to take this class in any one semester. As well, it seems to me that if I’m paying over $3000 a semester to be here, I should at least have the chance to register for a class of such importance.

Things are going to work out all right in the end. My advisor said I’ll still be able to take my capstone course when I need to, even without one of the prerequisites that the class I wanted this spring is a prerequisite for. I’ll be able to shift some things around, and still graduate when I plan to. And I was able to salvage a halfway decent schedule out of the mess. I just filled the hole in my schedule with a sociology class that will count toward my liberal arts/natural sciences quota. With that, and a game of Road Rage, I’m all better.