With the Wisconsin primaries over, I've been thinking about the candidates running for president. This is an extremely liberal area/ school, which is not a bad thing, but it's easy to fall into the mindset of the majority when you are constantly exposed to similar opinions. I am moderate myself, so I really try to explore each candidate and what they will do. At this point I've decided this: Hillary does not seem like a very nice lady. I'm not saying that she wouldn't make a fine president, but I think she's kind of bitchy with her tactics and name-calling. I like Obama, but the more I hear about him, the more unsure I am about his character. Again, he may be a good president, but I don't feel like he's easy to get to know. The 'anti patriotic' accusations may or may not be true, but I think it's a serious issue that I haven't heard him defend whole-heartedly. I noticed that I haven't seen any republican support around campus or town. Like I said, it's a liberal city, but as a moderate individual, I would like to be exposed to each standpoint. I looked at McCain's platform (I think Huckabee's a jerk, so I didn't bother with him) and it seemed alright. I haven't heard any negative remarks from him or crazy accusations, so that a nice change. If you can't tell, I'm very much undecided in this election and I don't know a lot about these candidates. As a citizen, I want to use my right to vote responsibly and know who and what I'm voting for. If you have any comments or opinions about any of these candidates I'd love to hear them!

valentine's day

I've recently discovered that Valentine's day takes the cake for crappiest day of the year. Even with my plus one, I wasn't a big fan of the forced romance that V-day inflicts on everyone. I think that telling someone to do something romantic and packaging it up for them takes the excitement and authenticity out of true romance. Besides having this mindset, I've also managed to make Valentine's day practically unbearable for the most important people in my life this year.
Did you ever hear stories about the jerk who dumped his girlfriend/ boyfriend on Valentine's day? Every time I've ever heard a story about someone who did that I thought "gosh, who would do that; that's awful." Well, somehow, I ended up being that jerk last Thursday.
I love my boyfriend very much and we've been together since before our senior year of high school. Since then, we've done pretty much everything together. We went to UW Stevens Point together for our first two years of school and then we both transferred here in the fall. We both knew it would be a big change and we thought we were ready for it. However, neither of us realized how strenuous it would be on our relationship.
Things have been rough over the past semester and they've only been getting harder. We both have hard classes and we live far enough apart where we don't get to see each other very much, pretty much just on the weekends. That's a huge change for us; we've been able to see each other pretty much every day since we started dating. Between not seeing each other and our other list of relationship stresses, I decided early last week that we needed to take a break from each other for a little while. It really freaked me out at first because I never imagined having to take a break from our relationship. Once I got the idea in my head, it was hard to think of anything else and it began to sound like a pretty good idea, just until we both got back on our toes and figured things out for ourselves.
I had planned on waiting until next weekend to talk to him about it, but when we saw each other on Valentine's day he could tell something was bothering me and insisted that we talk about it. So, I told him how I felt and he agreed that a break might be good. I really feel like a bitch because who says "we need a break" on Valentine's day? Since then, my heart has just been aching and I'm not sure if it was the right thing to do or not. I think it could be good if we sincerely take a break and use it to re-assess our lives, but I just feel like crap and I know he does too.
Anyway, the moral of the story is, don't say "we need a break" on Valentine's day; it's not nice.

i hate you, winter.

Winter sucks. February sucks the most out of all of the winter months. This is because there isn't really a wintery holiday to look forward to and we are far enough into the new year to realize that we won't succeed in our resolutions for the rest of the year. Obviously, the cold sucks the most. I don't care who you are, nobody enjoys having their snot freeze to the cilia inside their nose and having their tears frozen to their face. How about the crappy roads? I'm pretty sure that everyone involved in the massive traffic jams and pile-ups over the last few weeks now hates winter as well. It's hard to see the silver lining when you are sleeping in your car overnight on the interstate when it's a whopping twelve degrees above zero. I wish global warming would hurry up and remove winter from our yearly itineraries.

why not prevent it?

When I was in high school, I was in a pretty serious car accident. I suffered from a variety of back and neck injuries. That is when I began my experience with chiropractic care. I still see a chiropractor as needed to keep my neck and back in alignment and to relieve my headaches.
Chiropractic care is a relatively new field of medicine. In fact, a lot of people still don't consider it a legitimate source of medical care. Among these "non-supporters" are many insurance companies. There are a lot of health plans that do not cover chiropractic care. This is something that really baffles me. Chiropractic care is generally used for prevention, so why would an insurance company refuse to pay for preventative medicine and prefer to pay for a surgery ten years down the road that would cost way more than the neglected preventative care?