Time for my Superbowl picks y'all! I unfortunately missed last week, but I'll recap how I did below (spoiler alert: I did well). At the end of this, I have a picture from my nfl.com picks to prove that I wasn't lying. I stand to either tie my record (8 of 11) or have a new personal best (9 of 11) so I wanna prove it's legitimate. First let's start with the conference championship games.

Green Bay at Seattle: Seattle by a field goal
If you had asked me before the game started, I would have decidedly told you Seattle was going to win. If you had asked me halfway through the first quarter, I still would have said yeah I think Seattle will win. If you had asked me at halftime, I would have rubbed the back of my neck and said with a lack of confidence in my voice that I thought Seattle would maybe squeak out a win. If you had asked me in the third quarter, I would have pretty much given up and said it was likely Green Bay. Surely well into the fourth quarter, I was convinced we didn't have much of a chance. But thankfully miracles happen and the Seahawks reward my faith in picking them initially! Thanks guys! Side note, that was one of the most fun (read: stressful) games I've gotten to go to.

Colts at Patriots: Patriots by 10-14 points
Well I got the ending right, but I had no idea it was going to be such a huge blowout. It was a pretty easy prediction though with New England having Browner and Revis able to keep points off the board (unless your  team plays with Joe Flacco).

And now time for my Superbowl prediction. I wanted to say New England, but I have to give it to Seattle. I can't bring myself to root against my home team. Plus I'm starting to come around and think we do actually have a shot. That being said, I won't be THAT sad if we lose because I do think Brady and Belichick deserve another title to cement themselves as true greats since Tom Brady is nearing the end of his career (whereas Russell Wilson has years ahead of him still to make me happy with more Superbowl wins. So my prediction is:

Seahawks vs. Patriots: Seahawks by a touchdown
It's going to be a lot closer than last season's Superbowl, that's for sure. I think Doug Baldwin is going to go to Revis island and will have little to no production. But if he can keep his ego under control and not demand too many balls from Russell Wilson, allowing him to throw to other receivers, then we can do some good stuff on passing. As for our defense, I think they'll be able to stop anything Tom Brady can throw at them as long as they keep him out of the red zone where he has thrown down some impressive plays this season.

Go Hawks!

Hey all. If you're looking for an update, look below. If you're looking for FOOTBALL, look HERE!!! As the top finisher in two, count 'em TWO fantasy leagues this year, it's my pleasure and duty to inform you who is gonna win in these playoffs. I'm chasing after that record of 8 out of 11 picks. This weekend I missed making my picks on the blog, but I'll run over them really quick and I'll be honest about what I thought.

Cardinals at Panthers: Panthers by probably 2 touchdowns
The Cardinals started the season strong, but key injuries just made it obvious that they weren't going to make it anywhere in the playoffs. They basically made it into the playoffs on the  backs of the guys who got injured. Once those guys were out, the Cardinals were pretty much locked in, but they weren't a playoff caliber team anymore. On the flipside, the Panthers were crappy all season and stepped up at the end of the season to scrape their way into the playoffs. That plus this being a home game for the Panthers made this an easy call.

Ravens at Steelers: Steelers by about 10 points
It was the Steelers at home. Big Ben has two awesome threats on his side with Bell and Brown. I totally forgot though that January Flacco is a scary opponent and that the Ravens are really amazing on the road in the playoffs. I guess I shouldn't have counted them out. I got this one very wrong.

Bengals at Colts: Colts by about 10 points
I made this prediction assuming AJ Green would play. Since he didn't, that left the Bengals sitting with virtually nothing against the Colts. Yeah the Colts had a crappy game in the final week of the regular season, but I had no reason to doubt Luck would s how up for the playoffs. Plus, the Bengals just keep losing in the playoffs year after year. This one seemed like a pretty easy call to make.

Lions at Cowboys: Cowboys by a possession
This one I definitely got right. Granted I may have decided on that before Suh was ruled back in the game, but it still worked out for me. This one was a tossup for me hence my decision to call it by just a possession. It was going to be between Dallas having a great offense and Detroit having a great defense. I gave Dallas the edge because Suh was supposed to be out (again I decided this pick early last week), but looks like even with him in it didn't change much.

So I'm currently sitting at 3 for 4. Pretty good, but I could have done better. Time to get started for next week's picks.


Panthers at Seahawks: Seahawks by a possession
As a Seahawks fan, I know all about what I can expect from a team with a losing record coming into the playoffs. All I can expect is an easy win at home and then getting smashed in the following game by a team that really deserved to be there. Plus it's the Seahawks at home. My faith may waver depending on who wins the Packers/Cowboys game, but I think this game should go to the Seahawks for sure.

Cowboys at Packers: Cowboys by a possession
The Cowboys scared me this week, but they're just a strong team this year. I'm on the Cowboys hype train these playoffs and I think they'll come to get revenge for the Ice Bowl next weekend. The defense can and needs to stop Rodgers. If they don't it'll go to the Packers.

Ravens at Patriots: Patriots by a possession
Sorry, Ravens. I want them to win and I've happily watched them do it IN Foxborough and they do it the best out of any team in the NFL. But the Patriots this year feel stronger. I think they'll be able to hold off the Ravens. But not by a lot. They had a couple crappy games in the last few weeks of the regular season and I don't know how much faith I have in them. Still, I think if they win this game, they're going to the Superbowl. I'm giving it to the Patriots.

Colts at Broncos: Colts by a possession by less than a touchdown
The amount of time I changed the team name above in my prediction troubles me. I want to believe the Colts are going to pay their old quarterback a visit and surprise him, but I don't know if I can believe that. The thing is, it's not because of Peyton Manning that I'm unsure, it's because of Denver's recently strong rushing game. I'm not sure if it'll be enough though. Screw it, I'm giving it to the Colts, but it's going to be a close game.

I hope I don't go 0-4 this week. I'll be excited to see how things pan out.

Oh geez I really forgot big time...

H...hey guys. Been a while hasn't it? Surprise surprise, I've been busy again so I forgot to keep the blog updated. I'll get to that now though. Right after this post, I'm going to start up my football predictions as Orion kind of made me feel like it would be fun to do that again. But first I should get you caught up with things that have happened since...October? Yikes. Oh and before I begin, happy 2015 everyone!

Work:
Work has been really good. November and December got CRAZY busy with me at times going the full week without playing any games. It got kind of annoying, being that I was always either at work, dating, or sleeping. I enjoy all of those things, but I do enjoy time for myself from time to time. Now that the semester has ended, life has improved drastically. I've been able to sneak away some much needed time to myself to do this and that and it's been nice.

The school year ended pretty neatly and I feel like Brandon and I did a good job this whole year. My students this year improved much more than the ones last year. I feel like I'm starting to get good at this job. And in some happy news, Brandon decided to stay next year. Our boss  was happy to have him back (as was I) and in fact was so happy that he was able to make a few demands. Because of him, we're going to have a much more favorable weekend work schedule next year. Unfortunately that means my high-paying Saturday classes are going to be gone, but I'll be happy to have my weekends back at any rate. Additionally, Brandon secured a promise to teach our same students again next year. This will really be great because we'll know exactly what to teach them. I really like this class of students and I'm excited to make sure they get really great scores on the Korean SAT in a couple years. I'm excited for next year, because I know I'll have a good partner next year. The downside is Brandon is almost definitely leaving after next year, so after that I'll be "on my own" with some new partner unless I can convince him to stay another year. Either way, I'll only be here for two more years I think. Once my students graduate, I want to go with them. What I do after that depends on where my relationship is. If I'm still dating this girl, I'll move closer to her. If not, I'd probably think hard about bothering to stay in Korea. I really like being here, but I'd be happy to be back in the states too. It just depends how my life here goes.

Dating:
Dating is going pretty well. At this point we're working hard at learning how to be in a successful relationship and it's going pretty good. We see each other every weekend and do lots of stuff. Recently, I've been starting to save money in planning for moving out next school year. It'll be nice when I'm on my own and can actually have visitors without getting in trouble.

Gaming:
Brandon finally hit level 30 and he's been getting better at League. Next season I might hit ranked with him. My smurf is level 30 also, so I might play with him on that. I don't know how good he is exactly yet but he's pretty smart and thinks of good builds by himself. Also he seems to understand why recommendations are good on champions and he has a good knowledge of what he SHOULD do in games (the mechanics will follow soon I'm sure) so I feel like he should get at least silver. I secretly think high silver, but I didn't want to get his hopes up, so I just told him silver for now. I'm interested to see how good he becomes! In the meantime, I guess since October 31st was the last time I posted, I should mention I successfully ended the season in Gold. No decay happened and no punishment (wasn't expecting any though). It's a nice feeling to have that gold reward and gold banner on my loading screen.

Other things:
As I've said, my free time these past few months has pretty much been nonexistant. I have however spent a lot of time going to Korean class. That class is getting really stressful because I'm falling behind in it. I just don't have time to study like everyone else. Everyone else has a maybe 20 minute commute to class. That alone gives them a lot of time to study the material we cover in class. I however maintain my 1.5 hour commute time (that's one way) so I piss away a lot of time just riding the subway. I would study hard on the subway, but its nearly impossible between all the noise and the lack of space. Plus that's when I need to catch up on sleep which I'm missing out on because of the Korean class. Until now the teacher has been sensitive to my plight, but I think he's wearing thin on that and I can't say I blame him. I feel like the rest of the class is far ahead of me and I have a lot of catching up to do. Last year when I went home, I was able to skip a month with no trouble, but that was a different teacher. This time around, my current teacher said he would have to re-test me to make sure I learned all the material when I come back. I know I can study what we will learn this month, but I just know he wants to test me on other random stuff we learned months ago too. I'll be bummed if I can't rejoin the class because I've been in that class the longest (15 months straight). The longest anyone else has been there is the other American guy (9 months). After that, everyone has been there either 1 or 2 months. Of course seniority is no reason to keep me if I'm falling behind and I understand if I get kicked out. I've honestly been feeling burned out on that class recently and I feel like I have a good amount of stuff I could study really easily on my own to get caught up, so if I get kicked out, I think I'll consider dropping that class, the cost, and the 20 hours a week that I spend on it (of that 20 hours, 6 (yes, a mere 6) are actual class time and the rest are my commute and a little bit of homework).

In other news, the cat is doing well. I got her fixed recently and she actually had to get surgery a second time because she took off her cone of shame while I was at work and licked up the surgery site and it got filled with pus. She's doing okay now though. And when I say she, I'm not exactly sure what to say. I just found out this weekend that she has both ovaries (which we knew about since they took those out) and testicles (which turn out to be exactly what I thought they were). I was a little surprised because that means I was right on that day I first brought her home and assumed she was a boy. So I guess it turns out my cat is a hermaphrodite. Just an interesting thing I guess. It won't change much in the long run because soon she'll have neither set of parts but she'll be my sweet little kitty no matter what~~~. I guess I need to figure out what gender to refer to her as. I'll ask the vet next time I'm there.

One last thing before I stop, I'll be coming home soon. Looks like sometime next week. I'm shooting for around the 14-16th until sometime at the end of the month. Expect it!!!

Until I see (some of) y'all in person, peace out! I'll get going on that football post now.