The Joys of Raising a Kitten

When I first got my kitten I really didn’t know what to expect in terms of how fast the kitten would grow and what tricks I could teach the kitten to do. Each day that I have the kitten, the more amazed I have become with how fast he is growing up and how much he has already been able to learn. He is currently only about four and a half months old and he already weighs nearly eight pounds and he has already learned more tricks than I ever would have expected a cat to be able to learn over their entire life. The first trick I was able to teach my kitten is to come to me when I shake a bag of treats. He learned this fairly quickly and I was soon able to teach him to come running when I call his name. 

The next trick my kitten was able to learn was to play fetch. This was the last trick I was ever expecting a cat to learn, and the first time I threw a toy and he brought it back to me it really caught me off guard. Ever since I learned that he likes to play fetch I have played fetch with him for almost an hour every day, or as long as he is willing to keep bringing the toy back to me. The only distractions that consistently bring an end to his involvement in the game are when he loses the toy or decides he would rather play with another cat living in our house. Nothing brings me more joy in life than teaching my cat all of these different tricks and I hope to teach him many more over the course of his life.

The Curse of Thanksgiving Break

The three weeks between Thanksgiving break and Christmas break are possibly the hardest three weeks of the school year, with the weeks leading up to summer vacation being the only contender. I just spent a little over a week doing absolutely nothing and now that I am back at school I am finding myself slammed with assignments and presentations and I have absolutely no aspiration to do any of them. This happens every year of college, however, with it being senior year it’s even harder than ever this year to find motivation before Christmas break. If I did not care about my grades, I would highly consider not doing the rest of my school work and just kicking it for the rest of the semester. 

I am not really sure what I am going to do to find motivation for the rest of this semester, but I am really not too worried about it because I always find a way to get everything done when it’s all said and done. For example, I am writing this blog that is due later today during another class I am in because I put off writing it all week long.  Whether it is pulling a couple all-nighters and just grinding my way through all of my assignments or doing a little bit every day and slowly chipping away at the mountain of homework, I will find a way to get everything done and hopefully get a decent grade in the process. 

Burying Myself Alive

Somehow or another I have procrastinated all of the assignments and projects I have due before Thanksgiving break and now we are two days away from the break and I am buried in school work. It is going to have to be a marathon of studying, writing and reading for the next 48 hours and I am the furthest thing from excited about it. I hate when I do this to myself, but it seems to have been a very common occurrence during my college career and has become even more prevalent during my senior year. Every time I find myself buried in school work with deadlines fast approaching I always tell myself, “Pressure makes diamonds." I know this is a pretty cheesy quote, but for some reason, it is often my source of motivation when I’m up at 3 a.m. working on an assignment that is due the next morning. 

I feel like this problem is something I really cannot complain about because it is my own doing, there is no one else to blame but myself. Every time I make it through a hell week I tell myself, “OK, no more procrastinating, it’s time to start keeping up on assignments.” Unfortunately, I am rarely able to motivate myself and I find myself doing the next round of assignments at the last minute just like many of my other assignments that came before. I’m hoping this is something that I will grow out of in the real world, but for now, I am stuck in a paradox of procrastination and senioritis and I do not see myself changing my ways anytime soon. 

Bringing my Kitten Home to Momma

Thanksgiving break is only a week away and I could not be more excited. I have not made the trip back home to New Buffalo, MI since before I moved back down here for the school year. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to go home at some point over this semester, I have just been ridiculously busy and haven’t had the time to set aside a whole weekend just to go home. This year going home is going to be much different than my other trips back home because I will be transporting my kitten with me. This should be an interesting adventure because the kitten has never ridden in the car for this long and my mom is allergic to cats so it should be pretty crazy once my kitten and I make it home. 

I have been telling my mom for months that I was going to get my own cat when I moved back to school this year and she just kept telling me “you better not”. Did she really think I was going to listen to her? Hell no! Within a week of moving back to school I had secured my kitten and the rest was history. However, I think I will have a good chance of winning my mom over because when she saw a picture of my kitten she said it was one of the cutest cats she has ever seen and it reminded her of the one she had when she was a kid. At the end of the day, I think everything is going to be alright and my mom, our dogs and my kitten are going to be one big happy family. 

My Kitten vs. Devil Cat

I never thought I would say this, but my new mortal enemy is a cat. It’s not my cat though, it is one of my roommates’ cat. His cat’s name is Isabella and she is one of the biggest assholes I have ever met in my entire life. As many of you might know, I recently adopted my own kitten to raise in my image. Unfortunately, ever since my kitten moved into the house Isabella has been a complete jerk to him. She takes massive dumps in his litterbox and eats all of his food every chance she gets. And on top of all of this, she physically bullies my kitten by holding him down and biting his scruff. I know this isn’t really hurting my kitten, but it is just so unnecessary and I hate it. 

Luckily, my kitten is starting to grow more and more every day and he is finally getting to the point where he can defend himself from the devil cat named Isabella. He is just over three months old and he has tripled in size since I got him. Now when Isabella tries to hold him down he just repeatedly kicks her in the head as fast as he can until she lets him go. This always makes me very proud and I reward him with a buffet of treats and mirage of petting. I know one day sooner or later Isabella will start being nicer to my kitten, but until that day comes I will make it my life’s work to train my kitten to kick her ass. 

Getting Ready for Halloween 2019

Happy Halloween everyone! If any of you are like me you might be sitting there thinking, “It’s Halloween and I have absolutely no idea what I am going to dress up as.” It seems like the older I get, the more last-minute my costume idea becomes and I barely find the time to scrape together all of the elements of my costume. When designing my costumes, I always ride a fine line of spending as little as money as possible, while still coming up with something that doesn’t look like complete garbage. Usually, I get lucky enough to design a costume using clothes I already own and the only money I usually have to spend is on face paint or small props that perfect my costume.

This year I decided that I am going to dress up as the devil for Halloween. I know this sounds a little bit out there, but there is a master plan behind this cynical costume. One of my roommates decided that he was going to dress up as Jesus for Halloween, but with a twist. Instead of turning water into wine, my roommate has the ability to turn water into Busch Light. I haven’t decided what my gimmick is going to be as the devil, but I do know that I need to come up with something as clever as my roommate otherwise it is going to be a waste of both of our time. I do know that I will have to spend a maximum of $20 on this year’s costume which means I will have more money to spend on beer this holiday weekend. Once again, Happy Halloween everyone and stay safe out there this weekend!

Unexpected Visits to Our House

When you move into an off-campus housing situation you always forget that you face the possibility of your landlord and a group of strangers walking through your house and looking at all of your different possessions. Last year when my roommates and I were looking for houses to rent we did end up walking through a couple of houses that had people living in them, but when the time came around this year for people to start touring our house we were completely unprepared. As you may infer, living with three other guys and four different animals lead to a rather messy house compared to a house with normal living conditions. That being said, when the landlord texted me on a Thursday afternoon wanting to show the house later that night everyone in the house went into a panic. Luckily, we were able to push the visit off until the following Monday, but there was a substantial amount of cleaning in front of us in order to get the house back up to tip-top standards. 

Over the course of that weekend, we collectively put in about 40 hours of backbreaking cleaning before we finally got the house up to par. For myself, this involved washing the four loads of laundry that have been piled up in my room for the past two weeks and picking up all of the beer caps I have thrown all over the house. There was also a blanket of cat and dog hair that we had to vacuum up from the floor and we went through an absurd amount of air freshener. By 11 p.m. Sunday night the house was finally presentable and we were able to give a tour Monday night. Unfortunately, we did such a good job cleaning the house that the landlord has scheduled two back to back visits for Wednesday night so we are not out of the woods yet, but at least we have a clean house.