I’m kind of crazy about the holidays. I have multiple boxes full of costumes for all different holidays — other than just Halloween. I have light-up pins and springy headbands for the Fourth of July, sparkly shirts and reindeer ears for Christmas, clover-print shirts for St. Patrick’s Day, and egg earrings for Easter. Then, of course, are the Halloween costumes and trinkets.

When I was growing up, I always thought that I was so old. No matter what my age was, it felt like my peers and I were more mature than we actually were. But there was always some grade above us that we looked up to. There was this threshold that we were dying to make. Once we passed that threshold, we set our sights on a new one. Now it’s senior year, and I’m itching for a new goal.

Just over 10 and a half years ago I hopped off the school bus wearing a bright shiny apple-shaped nametag, ready for my first day of kindergarten. Looking back, that seems like ages ago. But when I think back to fifth or sixth grade, the memories are not as hard to remember, and it’s hard to believe that was nearly five years ago. At that age I imagined I would be in school forever.

I’ve always been a winter person. Something about the season has appealed to me again and again. I love how the air is always so crisp and mystifying, and the way the world transforms — the way the windows freeze, the way the snow mist dances on the pavement, and the snow itself.

We live in an age of multi-tasking. Instead of just doing homework, talking to someone on the phone, eating a snack, listening to music, or watching TV, we do them all together.

It's everywhere I go. Teachers, relatives, friends, even books and the media remind me of it day after day, and there’s no escaping it.

It’s that time of the year again — the end of the school year and with it graduations and goodbyes. Usually I’m really excited about school ending because it means summer vacation is nearby. But today as the bell for my last class rang I didn’t jump up and down with joy. It was a much more mellow and somber moment.

“The plight of the older sibling”: an article I recently read describing why older siblings have it tougher than younger ones. It claims that parents are harder on older siblings than on younger ones in order to set an example.

Each year 1,006,970 women are stalked in the U.S. along with 370,990 men. At some point in their life, one out of every 12 women and one out of every 45 men will be stalked.

When a dog is lost, it can be returned home if it has a homing chip in it. The “lost dog” signs are torn down, and everything returns to normal.

When a child is lost there’s not always that guarantee. But what if there was a way there could be?

This year I have noticed a larger number of student teachers in my classes. I never would have noticed a difference in grade school because it was normal for my classes to have a student teacher. In fact, I always had several.

Every generation has its own music, right? Or at least that's what all kids claim — heaven forbid they are interested in something their parents liked. So each generation follows as a unit. Each generation can tell different "When I was your age, Skipper …" stories to their grandchildren.

When I was younger I swore to myself I would never become addicted to caffeine. I saw how my parents and teachers couldn’t go a morning without their three cups of coffee, and I didn’t want that to happen to me.

For the past three years I have attended the Engineering Open House on the U of I campus. Each year I stayed for different amounts of time, went to different exhibits, and went for different purposes, but each time I found that the devotion and excitement the people running the exhibits displayed to be remarkable.

Humans like to have company. It’s a natural fact; it’s why we do so many things together. There are times, though, when I prefer solitude to mass amounts of chit-chatting and commotion. In those times I seek solace in the places that put me most at ease.