My ISU Football Game Experience

For this blog we’re supposed to talk about an event which we’ve attended at ISU this semester. To be completely honest, I’m not very involved in the school at all. During high school, I used to be on different sports teams and a few different clubs. I didn’t mind it at first but by senior year I was so sick of being involved and decided that in college I wouldn’t get very involved at all. I wish I could say I attended at least one basketball game because that’s what I’d like to write about but the only thing I’ve really gone to was one football game at the beginning of the year. The game was towards the end of September and it was the homecoming game against Eastern. I really only attended it because pretty much all of my friends were going to it and someone I knew from Eastern had driven two hours to see the game. So game day came and my friends from all the different dorms (excluding Tri-Towers) met in my dorm room in Atkin-Colby. We walked to the football stadium and ended up getting there early in the second quarter. To my surprise, the game wasn’t all that bad. For the most part it was pretty fun and I got to see a wide range of people from classes, my floor, my home town who I hadn’t seen in a while. The atmosphere was a very fun one. Everyone was getting pretty into it and ISU had a lead for a good part of the game. It was actually a really close game but ISU ended up losing just at the very end. Overall, it was a pretty good experience. For the last part of the blog we’re supposed to say what we learned from it. It’s really hard to say that I learned anything while attending an ISU football game on a Saturday night. I guess I could say that I learned that maybe getting a little involved, just going to sporting events and such at ISU would make the experience better.

Horrible Luck

For this blog we’re supposed to write about any topic we’d like. I was originally going to write about my picks for the coming up March Madness Tournament. But I figured that’d be a little boring so I decided I would tell a story about an event that happened to me the first Sunday of break. It all started a few weeks ago. I found out that during an ISU radio show on a Saturday night they would be giving out tickets to T.I. at U of I. Knowing that there probably would be no one listening to the ISU radio on channel 5 at 8-10 pm on a Saturday night, I stayed in until about 9:30 and the giveaway finally started. I immediately called in and ended up winning the tickets. Even though I’m not a huge rap fan, I was excited because I usually don’t win things and have horrible luck. I decided to take my girlfriend who goes to DePaul and knew I would have to drive her back early on Monday morning. When Sunday came along (the day of the concert), the weather was very bad. But despite this, we drove from my hometown of Oak Lawn (south side of Chicago) all the way to Champaign. The wind and weather was bad the whole drive there but I figured it’d be worth it to see the concert. When I got off at the Champaign exit after 2 and a half hours of driving, I got a call from a friend of mine who said the concert was canceled because the power was out. After this, I stayed at U of I for about an hour and decided that I would go to ISU to pick up my power cord for my laptop which I had forgotten. With the horrible weather I spent the night at ISU. When I got here the whole campus was dead and no one was in site. I asked the guy at the front desk and he said “free parking”. The next day I woke up to leave at 10 in the morning to find out I got a parking ticket. After that, I drove from ISU to DePaul then back to my house. Four and a half hours later, I was home. With a canceled concert, 7 hours of driving, a parking ticket later, I’d consider it one of the worst experiences of my life.

What I'd do with $80,000...

The question which I am supposed to answer for this week’s blog is what would I do if I were to get all the money that I’d spend during my four years at ISU and had to go out into the real world and “spend” it how I’d like. Having no money in my wallet and less than $200 in my bank account, it’s difficult to imagine how I’d spend $80,000. I think the first thing I’d do with the money would be buy a car. I wouldn’t go out and buy an $80,000 car but I’d just get one that’s somewhat new and that could last longer than the long line of beat up cars that I’ve driven since I got my license. Then after that I think I would buy some things that I’ve really wanted over the last few years and just haven’t had the money to buy. It’d just be small things such as a nice phone, a new iPod, tickets to a few Bulls, Bears, and Sox games. After that I think I would spend a little bit of time on vacation outside of the United States. Besides two short trips to Canada, I’ve never left the US. I would probably go to Mexico where my $80,000 would seem like so much more. After buying a new car, buying a few small things that I’ve wanted for awhile, and going to Mexico I’m not sure exactly how much money I’d have left but I’m sure it’d still be a good amount. I think after all that I would get a job that requires very little effort and has really flexible hours. It probably wouldn’t pay much but I’d try to go as long as I could living off of the money I received for not going to ISU and my money from my job before I had to enter back into the real world. There are probably so many better ways to spend $80,000 but I think this would probably be exactly what I would do with it.