Blizzard ‘08: Even though I forgot my MacBook power adapter across campus and endured a CNN special report in which a newscaster demonstrated the concept of snow drifts, I survived.

There’s over a foot of snow outside, and I’m pretty sure I suffered partial snow blindness trying to navigate the labyrinth of shoveled pathways. There was a huge group of people playing football in the field, and on our way back from River Café, we saw another group of people playing red rover while more people built an igloo on the other side of the field. I was jealous—mostly of the red rover group.

Finals weeks is pretty much here. That means I’ll have to start my intense studying. Soon. I actually did some work today, which, believe me, is quite rare. Only engineers get a lot of work, but because I’m a business major and can’t start business classes till next year, I’ve had it pretty easy. Not too much homework, and, sure, classes are harder, but everything here is relative; as long as you do better than most people in the class, you’re good. Even if you fail a midterm or a final. It’s all curved.

I finally settled on a track list for the mixtape I made for my first exchange in the OSU Mixtape Exchange group on Facebook. In all seriousness, I spent hours on this; I’ve spent more time on this than I have on any assignment all year. No particular order—besides the intentional juxtaposition of 5 and 6—just some of my favorite songs:

1. Landslide, Smashing Pumpkins
2. Sea Legs, The Shins
3. Vienna, The Fray
4. Is There a Ghost, Band of Horses
5. Butterflies and Hurricanes, William Joseph
6. Butterflies and Hurricanes, Muse
7. Boy With a Coin, Iron & Wine
8. Neon Bible, The Arcade Fire
9. Faces in Disguise, Sunny Day Real Estate
10. Hysteria, Muse
11. Ordinary, The Alternate Routes
12. First Instant Last Report, Earlimart
13. Existentialism on Prom Night, Straylight Run
14. Fortress, Pinback
15. Lazy Eye, Silversun Pickups
16. Keep the Car Running, The Arcade Fire
17. Phantom Limb, The Shins
18. Peer Pressure, Jon Brion
19. Your Hand in Mine (Goodbye), Explosions in the Sky
20. Citizen Erased, Muse