Five Reasons I Am Loving This Semester:

-starting the day at one a.m. watching "Boondock Saints" and a short documentary on the sociological impact of growing up in American ad-driven consumerism and the unchecked creation of needs and insecurity, with all the fervor of eight angry young hairy men fomenting revolution (why is it that revolutionaries are always hairy?) Why has Christianity become a program of social control? How can we say we are free when we are slaves? We will change our world.

--sleeping and then doing a little honest labor with happy social interactions

--trying all day to study for my Foreign Policy exam tomorrow and succeeding only in having six amazing and varied learning conversations: Confusion and Hope with Musser, Basic Pottery with Rachel, abstract art with Hnatiuk, Community and Wholeness with Cheryl, photography and third-world life with Adkins, and great movies with Dave Lilley.

--by the time you reach senior year, your professors are your friends and your friends are your professors. i a priveliged to be surrounded by people like Cheryl, the Adkinses, Hnatiuk, Kanski, Farrow, Brautigam, Halulko, Mitchell, Nafziger, Musser, Alex, the Arensen Ladies--the discontented and passionate.

--writing a little free-form poetry

--listening to loud Irish drinking songs

--eating delicious Big Al's food

--my bank account is back to three digits!

--a good email from my brother

--a chat with two old RA's

--and finally, a fifty-minute brainstorming session with my housemates to generate creative ways to abuse the fact that the main source for Ben's next paper is a man with the unfortunate last name of "Butt."

This year rocks.