There's a Ghost in my Apartment

It attacks whenever I'm gone and no one is at home. One minute my things are in one place, I leave, and then when I return, everything is rearranged. It is so spooky. I'm not sure if you've been haunted by the "dirty" ghost, but it haunts me daily.

Usually on Saturday's I clean my apartment. I do the dishes, vacuum the living room, and pick up my clothes off the floor in my bedroom. Then, slowly, the ghost haunts me. It usually starts with the kitchen. Over the next several days, I'll notice that some of the things that I cleaned, are now dirty and sitting in the sink or on the counter. Then, the ghost moves to the living room: socks, shoes, and jackets begin to litter the floor. Then my bedroom, over the course of several days, my clothes again appear on the floor. How does this happen every week? I'm not sure...

The ghost isn't biased either, it also haunts my wife. Her clothes will be all picked up one day, and then it's almost as if a bomb exploded in her closet and they're all on the floor. It's beginning to unnerve me. How does one get rid of this ghost? How does one keep their home permanently clean?

Maybe I'll never find out. Maybe this ghost will follow me throughout my life. I hope not. But, someone please tell me how to work with this beast!

Time to Adult

I need a someone that is more adult than me.

I'm finishing up my last semesters in school and I have begun my search for an adult job. This is scary stuff. I'm not sure I want to be ready for this. Can't I just go back to the days when I was five and I got to sit in my underwear and watch Scooby Doo? Life was so much more simple.

Here's a thing that sucks about growing up and applying for jobs: almost every job I look for, even entry-level positions, require at least three years of experience. Like, how? I'm just graduating from college, and I'm already expected to have three years of professional experience before I even get out of college? That doesn't seem fair.

Next thing that sucks: applying online. This is so not personal! Who even looks at those online resumes? To be honest, if I was in a company that was hiring and people were submitting things online, I wouldn't spend any time with them. I would spend my time looking at resumes of people who I had a connection with. Finding a job is all about knowing the right people and if you don't know anyone, then you may be out of luck. Guess I should have gone to all those networking events, oops.

I just want to go back home and live with my parents! I don't want to make my own food, pay my own bills, and find my own job. Is there such a thing as a quarter-life crisis? Because I think I'm in one currently. And besides, us Milennials don't want to stay anywhere for longer than a few years. I'm not ready for this. But I guess I am. I've made it this far in my college career on my own.

Welp, I guess Scooby Doo will have to wait, I need to go apply for more jobs online and hope someone will look at it.

Social Cues

I have another rant for you all to enjoy. This one stems from the sometimes weird students at BYU that crave conversation and friendship, completely ignoring social cues. 

The following is an example that happens to me almost daily and it drives me crazy:

I walk into my general education class, maybe its a humanities class or something similar. I have my headphones in and i choose a seat in the corner or on the edge of an isle so that only one person can sit next to me. I be sure to check that no one is in the seat next to the one that I'm eyeing. I find the seat, I sit down, put my backpack under my chair (I put NOTHING in the empty seat next to me) and pull out my phone and listen to my music while surfing Facebook until class begins. Here's where it goes wrong.

Some random person comes up to me and they stop next to my chair. I can see legs out of my peripherals from staring at my phone. I took over and I see lips moving, but I don't hear anything. I awkwardly take out an earbud and ask what they said, and the answer is always the same, "Are you saving that seat for anyone?"

Obviously this seat next to me is open. I am not saving it for anyone, that should be clear because there is no indication that it is taken or being saved. This bugs me a little more than it should, probably. But why can't people just see an open seat, and then go and sit in it if it's clearly available? Drives me nuts. Then, after the interaction and I let the intruder to my personal space sit next to me, I put my headphones back in and numbingly stare at my phone again.

Then the next part happens, they try to make small talk with me. I've already put my earbud back in so we have to go through the whole awkward part of pulling out my headphones again and ask what they say. Then the conversation is always the same: what's your name, where are you from, what's your major, etc. Isn't it clear that I don't want to talk to you? If having my headphones in and not engaging you in any way wasn't enough, then weren't my short answers to your questions enough? I hate when I have to go through that awkwardness. The worst is when people do that when you're walking between classes and then there's no escape because they will follow you until you either get to your destination or you die.

Maybe I'm just a cynical old man. But I have my friends, I am graduating in a couple months, I don't need to make more. I understand where people are coming from, they're just trying to be friendly, and that's okay. But please, look at the social cues. If I want to talk to you, I will be fully engaged. If I don't, I'm going to sit there with my headphones in and my eyes three inches from my phone. 

I'm a nice person I promise. 

BYU Football, We Need to Talk

So, last night BYU lost to number 14 Boise State.

If I told you that BYU had a +5 turnover margin and it didn't give up the ball once, you would probably immediately think that BYU won. But it didn't. The Cougars lost 27-28.

Now, I'm not unaccustomed to ugly BYU games, they seem to occur often. But this one was bad. Really bad. So I'm mostly going to just vent on this blog, so apologies in advance.

First things first, who coached this game? Was it an NCAA coach or some middle school kid that treated the game like it was Madden 17? Really though, I'm not sure because it was awful.

Example 1: a fake punt on 4th and 19 in BYU's own endzone. When I saw this play, my first thought was that it was a blown play and something went wrong and the punter had no choice. Unfortunately I was wrong. This was a PLANNED play call. Never, in my years of watching football, have I seen a call like this before. This will easily rank in the top three worst plays I have ever seen in my life. The most bizarre part? BSU turned over the ball before it could capitalize on BYU's horrendous play call.

Let's talk about the quarterback and the wide receivers for a minute now. Every one is coming down on Taysom Hill as a result of his poor passing and poor judgement. I can't say that I disagree with these people. Hill didn't even achieve a 50 percent completion against BSU. He averaged just over four yards per completion. These are numbers that you would expect from a middle school or even a high school team. All I have to say is Hill had his shot in the most important games of the season and he didn't shine. It's time to prepare for the next two years and put in Tanner Mangum.

Now on to the receivers. On the few occasions that Hill had a decent pass, more often than not, it seemed like the receivers would drop them. Nick Kurtz comes to mind as he had three or four drops if I recall, one of them would have been a touchdown. Several other receivers got hit in the hands and dropped the ball on crucial plays as well. Here's what I don't understand: these players get recruited to do one thing. They're given money for food, for housing and to attend a nationally renown college and yet, they can't do the one thing that they're given all this to do.

If you didn't watch the game, you might be thinking "oh, but BYU scored 27 points!" Well, somehow, despite how awful the defense was, it managed to score two touchdowns on interceptions. Now, I can't blame our cornerbacks for getting burned on deep routes for most of the night because they're true freshmen. But still, our defense just couldn't hang.

BYU is painful to watch. The Cougar fan base lives off of hope for a good season. But rarely do the Cougars pull through. I guess that's why fans rushed the field when BYU defeated Mississippi State, a team that was 2-3 coming into Provo last week. Anyway, here's to hoping that BYU can win the rest of its games this season, teams that aren't ranked and aren't really relevant so my expectations are high. Don't let me down, BYU.

Oh the Irony

You may be wondering why I'm posting twice in the space of a few hours, I can explain. Remember how I admitted to being a Millennial? Do you remember what one of our (yes, I'm grouping all Millennials together) defining traits is? Procrastination.

So, I forgot to write a blog last week, which is why I am writing two this week. Double the posts, double the fun.

Why do we procrastinate? I say we because my wife is just as bad as I am. Procrastination plus procrastination does NOT equal productivity.

Maybe I work better under pressure? I'm not sure. But I do know that when my wife is procrastinating, it definitely makes me feel better about procrastinating and I certainly try to get her to procrastinate with me. I guess the saying "misery loves company" applies to procrastination too.

I like stories, so I'm going to tell you another one.

So one time my wife was procrastinating, for which I don't blame her. We were watching House on Netflix, we sure love that grumpy doctor, when she realized that she had to complete two assignments. One of them required her to bake a specific recipe of oatmeal cookies; I was excited when she told me. Then, disaster struck: she asked for my help.

Normally, I would be happy to help out, especially baking cookies, but it was probably around midnight (just a guess, considering we usually don't start homework until that time) and I just wanted to veg out before bed. Also, we didn't have all the necessary ingredients so I had to trek all the way over to the grocery store 5 blocks away. I ended up making the cookies, and pretty much doing the whole assignment for her while she did her other work. It was a humorous occasion, and shows what can happen as a result of procrastination.

Maybe procrastination is the reason why I have two zeroes on my weekly readings for one of my classes, but we can't be too sure. Don't worry mom and dad, I'm making sure I finish my little five point readings now.

I'll tell you one thing though, I will continue to procrastinate. It feels so good to be dangerous and push assignments to the limit. Who knows, maybe you all will be blessed with another week that contains two blog posts. Time will tell.

Sportz Ballz

Do I start Eli Manning or Andrew Luck?

Such are the questions that plague fantasy football leagues around the U.S. during the fall season. For those of you who don't know, Eli Manning is the quarterback for the New York Giants and Andrew Luck is the quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts. If none of that means anything to you, then this may be you during football season: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdwchohlMjI. 

But really though... Manning or Luck? You may think "Oh, choose Luck, he's the highest paid quarterback in NFL history, he must be good." But, my fancy little ESPN Fantasy Football app says that Manning is projected to score more points. So, do you see my dilemma? 

Now, there's probably nothing more infuriating than fantasy football. I've played in a league with my family for three years now, and in my experience, projections and stats and what analysts say have little affect on how well you actually do. Some expert will say that CJ Anderson is going to go off this week so be sure to start him, and then I find out that Anderson only gets my 3 points. I can't tell you how frustrating that is. But such is life. 

I have a fun story to tell you. 

Some people, like my mother, prepare for the fantasy football draft weeks before football season even starts. And boy does she go to town. I’m talking lists on lists on lists with notes on each player about what the expert analysts have said. Now, you would think that she would win our league, but I think she ended up like fourth or fifth last season. Sorry if I got that wrong, mom.

Last year, my wife felt a little left out because my family would talk every week about the frustrations and miracles that occurred in our fantasy league. She wanted to be a part of that. Now, she likes sports ‘n stuff, but mostly for the social aspect. We added her to our league and geared up for the draft. Besides what her brother and I told her about certain players during the draft, she didn’t know anything about any player. She just took the top player that was available at each position and went on her merry way.

Fast-forward three weeks into our current season. Guess who has absolutely obliterated her last three opponents? You guessed it. How is that possible?!?! She has won her last three games with a combined score of 345 – 250. She is putting those who studied and prepared for the season to shame. I’ll give her credit, she asks me whom I think she should start or sit every week (so maybe I’m the real winner here, or at least that’s what I’ll keep telling myself), but other than that she does nothing. But can anyone else see how frustrating it is for a newbie to just show up unprepared and then just destroy everyone? Fantasy football sucks.

Anyway, there’s my little rant about the most frustrating thing in the world. But you better believe I’ll be back next season, ready for more disappointment.

But really, Eli Manning or Andrew Luck?

I'll admit it... I'm a Millennial

Hello... It's me. 

Welcome to the blog of yours truly, Brennan Edwards. Although this blog is a requirement for one of my classes at Brigham Young University, I am going to attempt to entertain whoever will humor me by reading my posts. Here you'll find the thoughts of a certified Millennial and the various happenings that I find amusing, enraging, or maybe just some words about a really great nap.

The fifth stage in the grieving process is acceptance. I am here to accept the fact that I am a Millennial. I'm addicted to my phone, my attention span lasts 10 minutes at most, and 30 second YouTube videos are too long. But, please, don't call me a Millennial or else I'll get offended. I've also already forgotten what I was going to write about in this post, oops. 

Well, here's the typical hello-this-is-me starter pack blog post. I'm a public relations student at BYU and I'm just trying to figure out this whole being an adult thing. Fun fact: I got married last year in May and my wife is a major source of my entertainment. I mention her because she will probably be featured several times throughout the duration of this blog. I hope she can make you all laugh as much as she makes me laugh and she thinks she's the funniest person ever, so let's indulge her!  

As hundreds of Tinder profiles say - I like a good adventure. What Millennial doesn't though, right? That's actually a lie. Sometimes I really don't like adventure and would rather just look at memes on my phone or watch Stranger Things on Netflix. I do like camping though, that's an adventure isn't it?

I'm also a big fan of animals, specifically the dog and cat variety. Some of my best days include hanging out with a puppy or a fun kitty and having no human interaction. That's also a lie. At least the having no human interaction tidbit, I still love hanging out with doggies and kitties. Do Millennials lie a lot? Not sure, stay tuned. 

Well, that's probably enough for now. Check back next week for further ramblings of a twenty-something college student, maybe I'll have a coherent thought throughout the post. I should go now, my attention is wavering...