Things I Learned This Winter (a selection)

- I am a compositionist first and a rhetorician second.

- A truly awesome pair of shoes can make you feel better about everything in your wardrobe and are 100% worth investing in.

- "Oh well, it probably won't make much difference anyhow" is NEVER the right attitude to take on insulating your apartment.

- It's also a bad position to adopt towards paying parking tickets on time, letting your registration expire, and eating Valentine's Nerds and Hot Pockets 2 meals a day for three weeks.

- My instincts are usually right when it comes to ebay auctions, when I don't need another drink, and men. Just, you know...fucking learn to listen to them.

- Polo will always knock his water over. It doesn't matter where I put it.

- Renee + me + Plan B = never a bad idea. Except when I'm not listening to that second instinct above.

- I kind of really do have a boner for digital writing. I'm where I belong.

- Many of my academic insecurities could be lessened if I would just make more time for reading in my field. (Cue prelims!)

- I'm happier when I pay my bills on time.

- I enjoy myself some genre fiction from time to time, but round about the 10th book in a row it stops being a refreshing change and starts being a rut.

- Don't put 3/4 of your winter clothes away after the second 60+ degree day in April. This is a huge mistake and will result in your wearing the same 4 outfits for the next three to five weeks. (I cannot stress this one enough. I've been all "damn...I have *no* clothes" for weeks now, and tonight when I went to finish the job I was like, "oh...that's why.")

- No matter what their official titles may imply, my professors are not really all that interested in giving me personally tailored advice or mentoring outside the obligatory.

- Getting some time in outside is incredibly good for my mental health, even if it's very very very cold out and hard to make myself do it.

- My writing is good. But it could definitely be better, and for that to happen I'm going to have to work at it.

- It's always a good idea to brave an epic blizzard for a Snoop Dogg show.

- Remember how you used to listen to music all the time - walking, on the bus, working, writing, walking? Do that again.

- It's hard to un-care for someone once you open that door.

- People exist who think you are genuinely good at your job.

- You may be considerably above average at winter driving, but you're decidedly mediocre at knowing what to do once actually stuck in a snowbank of some kind.

- Relatedly - I have some pretty sweet neighbors scattered through the nearby blocks - friends and semi-strangers alike.

- Wisconsin winters are incredibly hard on me. I know blaming Mother Nature is the world's biggest cop-out and I'm not saying I couldn't do more to mitigate their effects. But looking back on the past 12 months the correlation between the quality of my mental state and general lifestyle and the season is too strong to deny - winter Fucks. Me. Up.

And so I'm that much happier it's spring. It's waking me up, and I'm excited to start a new phase, where what I'm learning is less about enforced work and disappointment and cold and more about passion for my field and possibility and Ralph Lauren photo shoot-esque outings on Mendota.

Life's not so bad. I need to be more positive. There's a lot on the horizon worth being happy about.