Fridge Magnet

One of the most memorable moments in my life came on November 2, 2016. For those who don't know me, I am a massive Chicago Cubs fan. My mom's side of the family had supported the Cubs for three generations, yet none had been able to witness a World Series championship. The Cubs had last won the World Series in 1908. Since then, the lack of a championship was attributed to the Curse of the Billygoat. The story goes that at the 1945 World Series, a man was not allowed to bring his goat to a game. As sensible as this may seem, the man was furious and cursed the team to never win a World Series again.  Many Cubs teams tried to break this curse, but despite several good teams, none were able to reach the World Series. Due to this, the Cubs earned the title of "The Lovable Losers." The 2016 season breezed bye with the Cubs finishing the best in the league. I enjoyed watching every game I could on TV. They reached the second round of the postseason again and were up again...

This past August, my family drove up to Minnesota to visit my uncle and aunt in St. Paul. They came down to Champaign two years ago, but we hadn't gone up to see them in a long time. Travel took the whole day from when we left at 11, until 11 at night when we got there. It was supposed to be a 7 hour drive, but there was a lot of construction which slowed things down, and we also stopped Wisconsin for lunch to stretch our aching legs. While the drive was very boring, the scenery got more interesting once we got out of Illinois and the perpetually flat landscape. My uncle and aunt got a new golden retriever puppy in the winter, who they named Winnie. They sent us photos of her as a small, cute ball of fluff when they got her. When we got to their house in the evening, we found that she had grown a huge amount when she came to meet us at the door. In addition to Winnie, they also have a large, fluffy, long-haired calico cat named Spot. It seemed like Spot was experiencing a lack o...

The most prominent memory of music from my childhood comes from a tradition that me and my dad had when I was young. This tradition has influenced my music tastes ever since.  When I was around 4, I loved trains, because what 4 year old doesn't like trains. During some afternoons, I would sit on our enclosed porch and play with my trains. Meanwhile, my dad would also be on the porch throwing darts or sitting by the window reading a book. He would put a CD in the CD player and we would listen to music as we did our respective activities. There was one album that he would always put on, "The Beatles/1962-1965" or the "Red Album". This may seem to be an interesting choice of album to be putting on compared to other music for kids at the time, but this album had my favorite song at the time, "Yellow Submarine". Now I should mention that my dad didn't just put on that album just because I liked one song on it. My dad is a HUGE Beatles fan. We...

This is Sarah Jane, one of my three cats. She is named after a character from the British TV show Doctor Who from its earlier years in the 80s, Sarah Jane Smith.  We got her in October 2014, from a humane society in Effingham. We saw a photo of her as a kitten online and immediately knew we wanted to get her. Unfortunately, we had to wait longer than expected to pick her up, because she had pink eye. This meant however, that we got to meet some of her siblings. Our original plan was to get her and one of her sisters, but two of her sisters ended up attaching themselves to my parents, and we ended up with three.  When we first got her home, Sarah Jane hid immediately. We only saw her a handful of times in the first week. Her sisters warmed up to the new environment much quicker than she did, but she eventually came out from wherever she was hiding. She was still very wary of her surroundings and would jump at the slightest noise. Even now, five years later, she is very s...

In the fall of 2017, I took a trip to New Zealand with my dad to see his family. This was the first trip that either of us had taken to New Zealand since 2005. My dad was looking forward to showing me where he grew up and places remembers. This is the view from the front of the high school that he and his brothers attended--Otago Boy's High School, in Dunedin. Dunedin is on the east coast of the south island of New Zealand. In the background of the photo is the Pacific Ocean. In the foreground of the photo is my dad reminiscing on his time there. Having only lived in the flat and landlocked city of Champaign all of my life, and traveling to very few places with any changes in elevation, or places with a beach, I was taken aback by the view with both of those things. On the day the picture was taken, me and my dad took the bus with my uncle Stuart to the school. Despite what he had thought we graduated high school, Stuart never thought he would return to the school, but he no...