Another Term Down.

David R.

March 18, 2010 - 10:00 AM

Finally, I am done with finals. The day that felt like it would never come finally came on Tuesday after I turned in the final paper for my English 260 class. Because I have had no finals to study for, I have been hanging out and relaxing for the last two days. I have been outside playing basketball at the church across the street, and relaxing with a nice beverage or two on my deck.

As I may have stated previously, I am going to Las Vegas for spring break. We all know that a trip like this requires a good deal of money. Because of this, early in the term I began collecting change, cans, and bottles. After every weekend I would walk around my house and pick up every can and bottle I could find, and stuff it into a garbage bag that I kept in my room. As the weeks flew by, my collection started to get bigger and bigger. Yesterday, realizing that time was running out, I ran my collection over to the bottle deposit section at Safeway. After all of this hard work, including digging around in a trash bag with mold all over it, I was only able to scrounge up seven dollars from my collection. I was a little disappointed, but I still had one more option.

Over the year, I also began collecting all of the loose change that I have. Every time I would go eat and pay in cash, I would usually get some change, and I would throw it into a little zip lock baggie in my room. Unlike the can collection, this change collection never seemed to grow. I felt like I was always stuffing change into the bag but was getting nowhere. Yesterday, I looked up where the different coinstar machines are located and I found one in the Wal-Mart down West 11th. I went there with my change and expected it to yield a low profit, like my cans and bottles operation. I threw my change into the machine, and to my surprise, I had $58 worth of change in my little bag. I was astounded. From the look of the bag from the outside it looked like there was no more then $20 in the bag. Of course, these machines have some way of making money, so the coinstar machine took 10 cents of every dollar that I had. so I was only able to take home $51. However, turning a bag of change into $51 was a nice little boost.

One of the best parts of finals week for many students is the point in time at which students can sell back their text books for some money. I did that yesterday and was able to get back $65. That gives me a little more spending money for the break.

I am going up to Portland for the next few days. I always enjoy going up to Portland because I am not from there so it gives me the chance to spend time in another city. March Madness began this morning, and my head is still spinning from choosing my bracket. I have never had a more difficult time picking my teams for this god of all tournaments. I have no idea who is going to win it, but I am going to enjoy watching the games to find out. With every game becoming a thriller, there is no better college sports month than March.