Right now I’m pretty darn set on attending University of Wisconsin-Madison. Both my older brothers currently attend University of Minnesota, and although I like it up there, I want to do something different, forge my own path. Madison is something new, something fresh. I like the campus, sports, academics, and the city. I’ve never felt a big longing to leave the state, and Madison is the logical choice.

And here’s the odd thing: even though I’m 99% sure I’m gonna go there, I don’t wanna admit it. When people ask me where I’m going I’m reluctant to give a definitive answer. I’d like to say its because I’m not sure, but I know that its just because I wanna hold off on making the decision official. Which I suppose isn’t that big of a deal right now, but eventually I’ll have to make it official and be done with it.

In other news, I’m sick of high school.

The moment you walk into the office you’re hit with that too-clean smell and halting high pitch whine of drills. The actual check-up is worse. While getting my teeth scratched with a sharp metal tool, I’m submitted to forced conversation with the dentist nurse lady. Really though, its not so much a conversation as it is me being talked at incessantly, with an occasional affirmative grunt from me while my teeth are being repeatedly stabbed. To add the uncomfortableness to one more sense, I have to smell rubbery latex gloves under my nose the whole time.

Then there’ s the polishing, which leaves gritty residue on my teethh and makes me cringe cause of the taste. And instead of being able to wash my mouth out thoroughly, the dentist sprays a miniscule stream of water over my teeth. But since thats not bad enough, we’re not even trusted enough to get the water out of our own mouth; the dentist has to stick a suction tool into our mouth and move it around for us. In all honesty, does it not make more sense to allow us to take a swig of water, swash it around, then spit it out? Will the extra water somehow mess up what they’re doing?

What I don’t get is why someone would want to be a dentist. Sure, you make a lot of money, but the last thing I wanna be doing ten years from now is scraping, drilling, touching, and digging around in other people’s mouths. I suppose I just don’t see the attraction of the career. Perhaps there’s a deep sense of satisfaction in diagnosing a doozie of a cavity on tooth 23 or scraping a large amount of plaque off the molars of a middle school kid. Who knows? I sure don’t.

Running in winter has some other benefits, too. It gives you a certain amount of respect for mother nature’s coldest season that you might not have otherwise. It also makes summer running that much easier. If you can do a hard 8-miler in January, whats a ten mile run in July? Psh, its nothing. Running really is a fantastic way to experience the 4 seasons and appreciate good ol’ Wisconsin weather.

- Shoveling 9 inches of snow is not fun.

- My gym class is doing cross country skiing right now. And I’m terrible at it. I wipe out going down the giant snow mounds and I can’t turn without ardously lifting my ski’s. The highlight of the hour is watching some people hit pine trees and others attempt to go off a rickety jump made of wooden boards and face plant.

- The snow is messing up my running. I don’t wanna be a wuss, but the prospect of doing a speed workout on unplowed sidewalks is a recipe for a crappy run and injuries.

- They may be childish, greasy, fatty, and come in small portions, but mini corn dogs are ridiculously tasty.

But in the end, we almost always end up dissapointed. The snow comes at the wrong time (2 AM to 7AM is prime), there’s not as much as expected, or the superintendent wants to show off to other districts by not closing his schools. And the ultimate let down to snow days is that they have to be made up. We miss a day and are filled with uncontollable jubilation; but then wish we didn’t miss it when the day is made up.

As I type this a snowstorm is brewing just hours away. Could it be? It could. But probably not. And getting my hope up will only make it suck that much more in the morning when there’s school, and there’s honestly no worse feeling than expecting a snow day and being let down. But on the other hand, there may be no greater feeling than expecting to go to school and being surprised with a snow day. So its best not to get my hopes up.

Nevermind. School sucks. I’ve got my hopes up.

- The first humorous discussion of the night occurred when my grandpa postulated that the Saints receivers were wearing gloves that had extensions on the pointer finger and middle finger. This, of course, would be illegal, and wholly improbable. The gramps wasn’t convinced until we saw a close up and the perception of extended grippers was simply becuase the Saints gloves had fingers that were different colors.

- I was rooting against Peyton Manning. Don’t get me wrong, he seems to be a nice enough guy and he makes funny commercials, but sometimes there’s just those people that I’d rather not see win. Peyton’s too good, so I was pulling for the Saints.

- It doesn’t get much better than some well made sloppy joe’s. It really doesn’t.

- The game didn’t entirely suck, which was a relief.

- In the post-game celebration, Brees came off looking like a real classy guy. The camera loves parent-children moments, and you gotta admit that him holding his little kid was pretty darn cute.

- In a segment of the annoying and bland post-game analysis, I heard in passing a commentator say something like, “There’s nothing scripted in football. You don’t know what’s gonna happen in the ball game. That’s why football is the number one sport in America.” Ah, I had forgotten that we are informed in advance of all the events and the final outcome of baseball and basketball games. If you’re gonna argue football is the number one sports in America, which most people wouldn’t disagree with, at least attempt at making an semi-intelligent statement.

- Wouldn’t it be funny if while Saints head coach Sean Payton was aggressively fist pumping the Vince Lombardi Trophy up in the air if he accidentally let go of the trophy in a particularly strong and manly thrust and the trophy went flying, fell, and broke? I think it would.