
Looming deadlines, exhaustive reading assignments, and late night study sessions – it’s all rushing back to me now. Though I’m completely overwhelmed by the size of the Champaign Urbana campus and back to square one on the social front, it feels good to be a student again. I’m sure this sentiment will change in a few short weeks when I’m downing (heavily caffeinated) Dews and stalling out on my lead paragraphs, but right now the “professional journalist” title seems within my grasp. I’m just one “intensive” year away.
The bad news is that this fast track comes at a price. If I learned one thing from last week’s orientation, it’s that I’m going to have very little time for recreation. Couple that with the discovery that my dormitory internet connection is tenuous at best (though this probably will change as the semester progresses), and it should come as little surprise that I will need to drastically decrease my involvement in The Rumble Pack Podcast. Believe me, this is a hard sacrifice to make, but my perpetual loafing had to come to an end at some point. That doesn’t mean I’ll be leaving the show completely. Right now, we’re considering pre-recorded addresses or rants to tag to the end of our shows (think Andy Rooney of “60 Minutes,” except maybe even more crotchety), and you can check back here for weekly blog posts every Monday and reviews every Tuesday Saturday.