Oy vey.

The Monologues are back on campus, so the bishops walk. Read the article here. Not quite sure how I feel about this; border skirmishes between Catholic clergy and the academic (and theoretically impartial) nature of this university happen all the time, over things like what professors are hired (are they Catholic enough?) and whether birth control meds can be offered at our on-campus pharmacy. It all works out in the end, after everyone ruffles their feathers and we all go back to our corners of the ring and sulk. My inclination in this case is to be exasperated with the bishops, but that's more gut reaction than researched opinion. Bishop Darcy posting things in our basilica (technically in his domain) seems a little silly. I tend to roll my eyes at the whole business and move on to more important matters.

Such as the weather. Lately, the in-vogue trend in South Bend has been lots of melting and rainstorms, causing our number of on campus lakes to increase from 2 to 200, then sudden freezing temperatures creating inches of ice everywhere. Walking on ice all the time to get to class is only slightly less bothersome than getting soaked, despite wearing a raincoat, going to class. When you get to class, you might have a numb arm from falling and cracking your head on the ice (as happened to my poor roommate this week), but at least you'll be dry.

However, despite the weather, my mood is mostly jubilant because we just signed the nation's best recruiting class (even if the recruiting sites give the honor to Bama, who will never be able to hold together their humongous class of recruits until fall). Signing day was way more fun than super tuesday. Go Irish.

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

[typical excuses for lack of postage]

Speaking of lack of postage, did you know it takes TWO stamps to send an absentee ballot? Discrimination against poor college kids, I say. I'm going through the effort of voting, the state should cover the postage.

About voting... I went with my 3rd choice candidate. Why? Because my first two dropped out before I even got to vote. Having already procured a Democrat ballot, my choice was narrowed down to Hillary and Obama, and I think it's pretty obvious which way that decision had to go. I feel like my rights were constrained; I might have rethought and voted Republican if I could have gotten a Republican ballot. At least I voted. Hurray for boosting the participation stats for my demographic.

Otherwise, life's swell. Classes are interesting (maybe I should have been a history major) and not to tough for once, social life is going well, and blockbuster online continues to deliver fabulous movies for me to watch. Seriously, nothing gives me a happy high like a really well made movie. Most recently, I have loved Amelie and The Waitress. Another good development: we went to a Superbowl party at the Knights' clubhouse, and dude, never in my collegiate career have there been so many steady couples in one room. I could lean against Joey without feeling like I was making the whole room feel awkward, and what a huge relief. Nice to find groups of people like that; having mostly single friends is peachy but makes me worry about being offensively non-single.

For the history buffs: War in European History is a fabulous and concise history of war, and War & Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust is delightfully controversial while explaining the Holocaust really, really well.

In other news, I'm looking at immersing myself in starting a Timmy Foundation chapter at Notre Dame. We would do advocacy, education, and fundraising year round for our partner org in the Dominican Republic and do an annual fall break service trip for 20 students with medical personnel. What I love is they've found a dependable, excellent, in need local organization that we can support and work through. We're not starting from scratch (like some campus initiatives) and we would be doing more than just talking about making things change. We would have a measurable impact over time and an ongoing relationship with our partner org. Furthermore, being tied to this group would give the chapter a sense of permanency- something hard to obtain in a college club with overworked and short-term leaders and members. Basically, I think this is the best thing to happen to ND since the CSC was founded, and I want to be a part of it.

Yup. That's pretty much it. Off to a Poverty Studies guest lecture by a South Bend dentist. The title of his powerpoint? Boom Times for Dentists, But Not for Teeth! So witty.