I submitted the last final exam essay for my history class today, which marks the end of my first quarter of graduate school. Classes resume again on January 6, 2014, so I have about three weeks of winter break.

For those who are curious, the topic of the essay was the reasoning behind the fall of the Democratic party in the 1960s.

There are a bunch of things that I’m looking to get done during these three weeks, and some of it involves online stuff. Specifically, I’d like to release at least two new videos – one vlog and one League of Legends stream highlight video – and maybe a third if I get time, including a bunch of unseen footage. I’d also like to stream a few times whenever I’m at a location where I have Internet good enough to stream.

So, if you’ve been eagerly awaiting some more of my personal content to be released, those are a few things that you can look forward to seeing within the next month or so.

If you’re a regular to my website, you know that I don’t regularly feature other people’s work on my website unless it’s of godlike-quality or has a close personal connection with me.

I decided to share with you today a new web series made by director Ray William Johnson and writer Anna Akana. Ray William Johnson is best known for his YouTube series “Equals 3,” where he comedically reviews viral videos. Earlier today, he released Riley Rewind, a series of five videos following the life of Riley, a girl able to rewind time.

The videos are available at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=vb.190558433385.

Be sure to watch the one at the bottom first, because that is Act I of V.

Normally time travel is a pretty difficult concept to work with because the creativity that comes out of it can be limiting, and easily turns things into a science-fiction story. However, I thought the way it was integrated into Riley Rewind maintained as much realism as possible.

This is one of the best web series I’ve seen, tied up there with Freddie Wong’s Video Game High School. If you’ve got some free time, I highly recommend that you watch it – it left me satisfied and wanting more at the end.

Update: the videos are now also available on YouTube; I have embedded the playlist below.

I have a paper due in a little bit (before today ends), so what better thing is there to do than post to my blog, right?

I’m taking procrastination to the next level by coming to my blog to rant about the annoying things in life instead of reviewing my paper and finalizing it for submission. It’s due at midnight tonight, so I still have about an hour left.

One of the reasons writing my paper took longer than expected is because my library’s research database kept trolling me. It acted as if it contained some top-security clearance-required material and kept logging me out every ten minutes or so. If I got to add my username and password to my paper once for every time I had to log in again, my paper would probably be a page longer than it is now.

In case you’re curious, my paper is about the effects of video gaming on adolescent social development.

In other news, I tend to have a chain of procrastination, where higher degrees of procrastination become beneficial to me because I end up finishing things that I procrastinated on earlier. For example, if I did not have a paper due today, I probably would not have shoveled snow off the driveway. But, because I was procrastinating on writing a paper, I ended up shoveling the driveway.

It’s a great way to get sort-of-procrastination-worthy things done. You should try it sometime.

On a related note, as implied by me shoveling snow off the driveway, we recently got our first shovelable snowfall of the season.

Which is awful.

Because I hate snow.

Now that I’ve consumed enough time doing other less-important things, I’m going to go back to revising and submitting my paper. Only one more to go after this one, due at the end of the week, then I’m done with my first quarter of graduate school.

If your name is Melissa Casher, please pay off your debt.

And in the future, I would prefer that you do not put me down as a contact reference, because there are debt collectors repeatedly calling me asking for help locating you.

The best part is that most of them are skeptical when I let them know that I have no idea who Melissa Casher is, then call back a few hours later as if I would have gone out to meet you during that time, and now know who you are.

I went to our family business early this morning, and upon arriving back home, I noticed that my iPod was missing. Curious to see if I had just left it at home in the morning and didn’t realize, I had left it at our family business, or if I had lost it somewhere along the way, I went on Apple’s website and used their Find My iPhone feature.

The GPS tracking let me know that my iPod was somewhere in the middle of my backyard. Putting a little bit too much trust in the accuracy of the GPS, I went outside and searched around my backyard for a bit, wondering the entire time how it could’ve possibly gotten out there.

Not long later, I realized that I had left my iPod sitting on my pillow this morning.

So apparently, according to Find My iPhone, my bed is in my backyard.

In other news, I’m almost finished with my first quarter at my graduate university. I attended my last class earlier this week, and now all I have left to do is write two final papers, one for each of my classes. As a result, I’ll probably be missing in action for a bit while I scramble to get everything done on time.

I have a valuable piece of advice for all those aspiring building and zoning planners and developers out there.

If you ever run out of street numbers, here’s an easy solution.

Just add ½.