So, we had an exciting Winter Break here in Fort Collins, Colorado. Marijuana became legal (well, legal-ish, since it’s still illegal under federal law), it snowed a lot right around New Year’s (though you’d never guess it from looking outside now), and many of you probably got back grades that are relatively decent, or at least won’t give your folks a heart attack. It’s now 2014, and by now most of us should have stopped dating our papers, diary entries, and such things 13 (it took me about a week, how long did it take you guys?).

Winter Break was precisely what we needed after Finals and a whole semester of slaving over our books, and now we’re getting ready to start the whole cycle over again—New School Year 2.0. We’ve got to pick up books again, some of us are getting new roommates, but now we’ve found our feet and we have at least a bit of a routine to fall back on, in spite of our new classes. Some of us graduated last year, some of us are new or transfer students, but by and large, most of us are still here from last December, and though things have changed, we mostly know what we’re doing.

It should be an exciting semester. The construction on the Lory Center is in its final stages and should be done in May (finally), they’ll be starting work on the new stadium sometime soon, and we’ll be getting our very own microbrewery, allowing the campus to offer a degree in brewing, much like Penn State’s ice cream degree.

However, some things will still be the same. There will be construction going on for the next decade or so here on campus, including a long-overdue renovation of the Eddy Building, which was first erected when Colorado was covered by an inland sea back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. As the weather warms up, there will be crazies from all walks of life haranguing us from The Stump or showering us with pamphlets. Cannabis, caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol will still be the main drugs of choice among the student body and faculty, and we will once again be up to our waists in homework assignments, tests, papers, and abstracts. After such a complete lack of activity over Winter Break, a return to routine and constant action will be a much-needed relief. I don’t know about you guys, but when I’m bored, I tend to act like Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock, shooting smiley faces into the walls and keeping ungodly experiments in the fridge before collapsing onto the couch in my pajamas (can you tell I’m ready for the new season?). Soon I’ll be bored again, but for a completely different reason, and it should be a more productive state of tedium, one that’s hopefully conducive to completing assignments before midnight the day they’re due and not to coming up with new and inventive ways to torture my Sims (taking a page out of Poe and walling them up to starve is my default, but I really want one to get electrocuted).

So, as usual, this coming semester will be a bundle of contradictions, with the pendulum vibrating between newness and stale routine. Things change, but life goes on.

Personally, I’m looking forward to my classes this semester, to continue working here at The Collegian, to spending time with my friends and boyfriend, and, perhaps most exciting of all, finally turning twenty-one. It may not be exciting to many of you, but it is to me, and that’s what matters.

My first article last semester was on resolutions for the New School Year. This semester, I’m keeping most of my resolutions to myself, but one that I’m willing to share is that I want to try new things, avoiding the rut and staying busy. I might go to a club for the first time, I might go to a CSU sporting event, or I might try martial arts. Who knows what’s going to happen?

Now that we know where we’re going on campus, it’s time to discover new secrets about CSU and Fort Collins. In your spare time, wander around town and see where your feet take you. Go explore a new area of campus. We know what we’re doing, and we have a stable foundation for the semester, and now it’s time to go into uncharted territory. Don’t descend into torturing roommates or computer-generated families. Let’s have an adventure!