The First Monday Of 2015

TigerBlog knows that today is Monday.

This makes today a bit different than most of the last two weeks, when he had no idea what day of the week it was. This is what happens when Christmas and New Year's falls on a, well, whatever day it was.

Actually, the holidays this year fell on Thursday, except that it felt like Saturday, or possibly Sunday. 

Did you make any New Year's resolutions? TigerBlog didn't. He was thinking of switching from third person to first person, though he hasn't made up his mind completely yet.

Did you watch Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve? TigerBlog can sum it up in two words: bad television.

TigerBlog's intro to New Year's Eve actually dates back to Guy Lombardo, even before Dick Clark. Now? It's Ryan Seacrest (barely tolerable) and Jenny McCarthy (unwatchable), not to mention some lip-syncing and awful singing.

Who was good?

Weirdly enough, One Direction was. So was Fergie.

Taylor Swift was too. She was even a tad human, when she said she might have chosen the wrong outfit and that she was freezing.

Everyone else was pretty much terrible. Well, maybe that's a bit harsh. There was just way too much fawning perhaps. And TB was asleep before Train sang.

TigerBlog was up around 4 this morning, awakened by the fierce wind. Try as he would, he couldn't get back to sleep - and for some reason, Taylor Swift's "Blank Space" was stuck in his head.

Of course, he blames Miss TigerBlog and her friends Maggie, Maia and Nell for this. TB drives the girls to and from indoor field hockey as part of a carpool, something that is much different than when he used to drive TigerBlog Jr. and his friends to their practices.

This is what he'd hear when he'd drive three or four 14-year-old-ish boys: silence. None of them ever spoke.

This is what he hears when he drives three or four girls the same age: non-stop chatter. About everything and nothing. The only time they don't talk is when they're all on their phones at the same exact time, checking out someone's latest picture or video on Instagram or Vine or whatever.

During the most recent trip, the subject was Swift's song "Blank Space" and whether or not she sings "They'll tell you I'm insane" or "They'll tell you I'm enslaved." Only Maggie thought it was "enslaved," and even TigerBlog knew she was wrong, since the song plays every five seconds on the stations the girls insist on hearing.

Anyway, it was all their faults that TB couldn't get that song out of his head. At 4 a.m.

And with that, now it's on to 2015.

It's a pretty big first 10 days of 2015 for Princeton Athletics. And, as is the case every year, that will be followed by a total shutdown for first semester exams.

Before those exams, though, there are some big tests. In fact, there are 24 athletic events between today and when the blue books - do they still use blue books in exams? - come out.

The first of those events is tonight, when the women's basketball team is at Hampton with a chance to do something truly extraordinary. A win tonight would mean that Princeton would have completed the non-league portion of its schedule at a perfect 16-0.

That would be insane, by the way.

Standing in the way is possibly the best 5-8 team in the country. Hampton might be below .500, but it has played a really, really tough schedule and has some strong showings because of it, including a 15-point win over defending Ivy champ Penn. Hampton also beat Auburn in its most recent game (Auburn is 9-6) and only lost by 20 to No. 1 South Carolina.

After tonight's game in Virginia, Princeton will open its Ivy season Saturday in the opening game of a doubleheader against Penn. Before that, the men are also home, tomorrow night, against Norfolk State.

There are also a pair of home hockey doubleheaders Friday and Saturday, as well as home events in men's and women's swimming and diving, wrestling, women's track and field and men's and women's squash.

And then nothing for two weeks.

But first, there are the big tests. Before the big tests.