Post-Holiday/Pre-Enlightenment

So, being it is almost February, I thought I should put up a post about how the holidays were pretty fun this (past) year. Good to see everyone and I hope your holidays were fun as well.
I have my graduate options down to three--Northern Illinois, UW-Milwaukee, or Marquette. I'm looking at each school's American Government-type program. As for school of current, I'm in some pretty cool classes, and some not so much. I have a class on modern political thought which is a bit arduous, but maybe that's just Thomas Hobbes--I'm looking more forward to John Locke, woo hoo! The other not-so-much-awesome one is semantics, mostly because the professor is in orbit. She's quite spacey which can make class entertaining but also frustrating at times. As for the classes that I have more of an interest, for starters, I have a gem (sweater? no) of a class aiming to give engineers a view of public policy they would otherwise not have gotten. It is taught by my favorite professor of whom I have found influential in my own views and style. Lastly but not leastly, I am progressing my musical awareness with the history of rock and roll which is a great class but the teaching assistant and leader of my discussion section is a fan of, nearly mutually exclusively, 1980s hair rock, which is a genre I can't exactly say that I can stand. I think I'm going to suggest a bit of TV on the Radio today in class. Sweeeet.
**Here's the political part.** I'm pretty excited but also carrying a bit of anxiety over the candidates that have declared or will declare their runs for the presidential bid in 2008. None of them have risen to the top, politically in my view of politics--public action. Sure Edwards started a nonprofit organization to deal with poverty issues and Obama holds town hall meetings, both of which are commendable and should be seen in our country with more frequency, but a truly political actor would be more inclined to practice politics in a much less mediated way. Let's have some real debates (please, not staged!) and some real conversations. Let's share dialogue, not monologous speaking from behind a podium without rebuttal. Will someone, please, address the heckler in all of his or her lack of apparent glory? Well, let's see how the primaries turn out. Tons of fun.
Most importantly, THE BEARS ARE IN THE SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!! As you can deduce from the amount of exclamation marks, I am looking forward to the game. Only two more weeks of analysts and Sean Salsbury (former Viking) saying that the Bears will lose for the third game in a row and we'll be able to, hopefully, see Lovie, Rexy, Thomas "not Tom" Jones, Brian, Lance, and the rest of the Monsters show up on Sunday night. Allright, now I can't sit still again. I'm too excited for the game.