In previous years, my winter breaks were filled with laze and sleep. While I did get lots of sleep this year’s break, I was also fairly productive, which I’m pretty proud of. My form of productivity wasn’t cleaning or getting a head start on school work, however. It was finally getting around to books, TV shows and video games I’d been avoiding during the school year. I enjoyed the new “Super Smash Bros.” game in its full glory on the Wii U thanks to a generous Christmas gift from my parents. (You can check out my blog about it here). I watched “Cowboy Bebop,” the fairly nerdy anime classic about galactic bounty hunters that senior Kate Schau has been bugging me to watch for quite a while now. But the most time-consuming and obsession-inspiring media I started this break was the “A Song of Ice and Fire” epic fantasy book series by George R.R. Martin, and the TV show it inspired, “Game of Thrones.”

The first book, which has the same title as the TV series, clocks in at a lofty 807 pages (at least, the mass-market paperback I read did). As you can guess, it took me a while to read. It was totally worth it. I might be a little late to the pop culture phenomenon, but the world George R.R. Martin created, filled with interesting and deep characters, is absolutely captivating. Political turmoil and war is set on a backdrop of diverse locations one can envision in their mind while reading. Plus, the freezing weather of break was also a fitting backdrop for the harsh cold of Winterfell, one of the major cities in the work.

Going in to the books, I thought they would be very dry, a la “Lord of the Rings.” I was pleasantly surprised; while the books are long, they are certainly consumable. Just when I think it’s getting a little boring or weighed down with description, something exciting happens, and that character death, new plot revelation or cliffhanger stops me from putting it down.

After finishing the first book, I decided to watch the first season of the show (another awesome gift from my parental units). Like any book-to-screen adaption, there were a few characters that looked very different from what I imagined. However, the show remained very faithful to the book (the author is one of the co-producers, so that helps), which made me a happy camper. I felt like a kid at a “Harry Potter” movie premiere, seeing the world I imagined while reading come to life.

Now, I’m on the second book, “A Clash of Kings,” which I want to finish before I watch the second season of the show. It seems I’ve found another geeky series to consume my life. I’ve even bought the soundtrack already. Next thing you know, my money will all be depleated on yet another nerdy pop culture empire. And you know, I’m OK with that. After all, I have to have something to do while cooped up. In the words of the Starks, “winter is coming.”