Cheers:

Finding a prize in your cereal box.  Living off campus and away from the dining halls can be challenging for young men who require frequent sustenance.  While Martin’s Supermarket can provide all the finest delicacies, nothing really compares to Mom’s cooking—and cooking for oneself is more time-consuming than eating at the dining hall.  Despite these drawbacks, however, there is at least one benefit to living off campus.  As I opened my new box of cereal the other morning to brace myself for a morning class, I pulled out not the expected grains and fibers, but a wonderful little toy car that has been my companion in many a dark hour since.

Spare change.  Imagine my pleasure the other day, when, to my great surprise, I stumbled upon a quarter laying on the ground (and better yet, it was lying heads up).  I forgot to pick it up, but hopefully another lad put it to good use.

There’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.  It is easy to become discouraged and downtrodden when the causes you are passionate about seem to be lost causes—especially for students, who are young and optimistic about the chances of changing the world for the better, but who as a result can become jaded when first faced with controversy and failure.  Sam said it best in the Two Towers when he told Frodo that “there’s some good in this world … and it’s worth fighting for.”  Cheers to those on this campus, and those who visit this campus, who teach us to keep fighting the good fight, whether we are winning or losing.

Jeers:

Kids these days.  I am often perturbed by the people on this campus (and elsewhere, of course) who walk the sidewalks with head down and phone in hand.  Whenever we are not walking with someone with whom we can chat, we hide our faces and become absorbed in our phones or look at the ground, avoiding eye contact with the people passing by.  We should try to change this and be friendlier.  But then again, maybe everyone is just looking for spare change (see above).

Parking Tickets.  It is not really that much fun to receive parking tickets.  Some would say that I have bent the law a bit too much in my parking techniques in past years, and I will not deny it.  Things were going much better this year, until yesterday, when I noticed the once-familiar white and red slip flapping on my windshield as I drove off campus.  Oh well.

Clemson.  The Irish did not play a clean game, and perhaps were fortunate to have the chance to send the game into overtime.  But the comeback was real, and hope was kindled.  The outcome demands not so much a jeer as a sigh of regret at what might have been in the season ahead (much as a spurned lover will pine for days of yore and hereafter).

Tim Bradley is a senior who misses his brother.  Contact him if you have any information about this at tbradle5@nd.edu.