Bullet'd (Ow! My skin!)

This is my new blogging style. It saves me from forming proper paragraphs and, occasionally, proper sentences.

• School started up again on Monday. It is my goal to repeat the 4.0, though I think it will be considerably harder to do so this semester. While my courses are all thoroughly interesting and I am sure I am going to enjoy them, I know there is going to be a lot more work involved. I am already behind, and while you may not believe it (and I certainly can't believe it), it's true. I have chapters to read, papers to read, lab reports to write, calculations to finish, etc.. I don't think I have ever had a faster start to a semester. I might get around to reviewing each of my classes as my blogging tradition dictates, but we'll see.
• I saw Children of Men on Monday. It's excellent. Great. Interesting. Sobering. Disgusting. Heartbreaking. Frightening. It's just wonderful. I plan to see it again before it enters theatre-to-DVD limbo. I highly recommend seeing it.
• My new camera was delivered yesterday!!!!! It's beautiful. I didn't get around to naming my old camera, but I am certain that this new camera is more worthy of a name anyway. A good name. Any suggestions? I'll take and post some test pictures soon-ish.
  
• My glasses, which snapped in two right between the eyes about two months ago after I was struck in the face with a soccer ball, broke in two again. After the first incident, I krazy-glued them back together, and they were practically as good as new. I tried to do the same after the second incident, but quickly learned that my efforts were fruitless. So, I had to buy new glasses. It took me a while to decide on a pair (I didn't know that many frames existed), but I settled on a pair of Pumas (I didn't know Puma made optical frames). I shall have them some time next week.
• My Beloved Oilers are on a bit of an upswing [knock on wood]. Huzzah!
  
• This Saturday is the ultimate sports Saturday. Three EPL games in the morning followed by three hockey games on Hockey Day in Canada.
• I started my resolutions post, and then deleted it as I had already failed to comply with more than one of my resolutions. So I've basically settled for one easy, simple, no-hassle resolution: be better.

I will now return to a forgotten blogging sign-off.
Music: "Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows" - The Beatles (from the newest release Love)

Bah. Humbug!

So, I haven't been blogging with the expected, increased frequency, but it's not like it matters because no one really reads it anyway. Nevertheless, some updates:

• I baked my cake and ate it, too! Last Friday morning I received my last final grade, delighted that it was an A+. I baked my cake that night. It turned out quite horrendously, ironically - if graded, it would have undoubtedly received an F. The cut was bad, the icing was worse. But in the end, it tasted delicious and served its purpose, and that's what really matters.
• Christmas came and went. I was pretty much none the wiser. I was neither excited nor festively primed for Christmas. My family abandoned our traditional large family dinner, thereby substantially reducing my yuletide potential to pretty much nothing. I have also been generally grumpy/not happy for reasons unknown (hormones, I suppose), and rather childish, in fact. I won't go into too many details to save me from looking like a totally juvenile prat that cares not for the so-called true meaning of the holidays and Christmas, but let's just say that I didn't get what I wanted while my spoiled (and I mean spoiled) youngest sister got EVERYTHING she wanted (including an iPod and a digital camera), and then some. I know, I'm a horrible person.
• My Beloved Oilers are frustrating me beyond belief, especially with the situation in the Northwest Division. They're 2-3-0 in their last five, which sucks. Their defense (both defensemen and defensive strategy) is crumbling, which sucks. Roloson has lost his mojo, yet again (and being hung out to dry by his defense itsn't helping, either), which sucks. I've actually watched more Calgary Lames' hockey than Oilers' hockey in the past while. It was nice to see them lose to San Jose and then Vancouver two nights in a row, though the Vancouver wins certainly convoluted the Northwest standings a little more. I'll stop here, because I really could go on forever.
• As always, I am worrying about my academic future. Not only am I not excited about the coming semester (though it will theoretically be my last for the time being), I have ZERO idea of what I will do afterwards. Sometime before I return to classes I will spend an entire day researching my options, which number many. I won't even go into it now to save me from the pain of indecision.
• I have been thinking about 2007 and some resolutions.... MANY resolutions. More on them later.
  

Happy New Year!

There are no real rules as to when resolutions should be made, but tradition dictates that it's usually at the beginning of the calendar year. I, however, make them at the beginning of the academic year, September here in Canada. Without further ado, here is this year's edition.

Get better marks
My resolutions usually involve some sort of academic improvement, something I have been successful at only once in the past few years (and only trivially at that - the improvement from Year 2 to Year 3 will never show up on a transcript; Year 2's GPA and Year 3's GPA round up and down, respectively, to the same value). And not to toot my own horn, but I have entered a bracket where improvement is no easy task as there is little room to improve. Nevertheless, I'm still going to give it all I've got to edge myself closer to a celebration that will involve a cake shaped as a 4.0.

Watch less TV
This resolution may be a little less ambitious than it ought to be and the details will tell you why. See, I love TV. LOVE. IT. And I plan on watching my fair share of it this year, too. I love "reality" TV (more aptly named surreality TV), and with new cycles of my favourites just around the corner, how could I not watch them? I have the likes of America's Next Top Model, The Amazing Race, Survivor, and The Bachelor to look forward to. I also like the regular syndicates: the CSI series and Lost (perhaps my absolute favourite). Plus, there is a pile of Oilers games I plan to watch. See, my problem is that I am easily susceptible to watching more TV than I had set out to watch. One hour of Lost could suddenly turn into three hours of who knows what. So, my resolution is to just stick to what I plan to watch, no snowballing, no time wasting. That's about 10-11 hours a week, which averages out to less than two hours a day, which is reasonable, right? ... right?

Have fun
I'm not saying that I don't have fun, but I think that I should have some more. The past three years have been wrought with sporadic episodes of fun between lengths of anti-social studying. This is the last year of my undergrad. The Last. I'll never have another year like it, so I suppose I've got to make the best of it. Of course, I am not thinking of "partying" nightly (because that's really not how I roll anyway), but I just think spending a little less time worrying about marks and a little more time laughing and enjoying life could do me some good.

It turns out that I am not very good with resolutions, but I argue that resolution-making is like daydreaming: you have this little window of time during which, theoretically, anything can happen, with no consequences close enough to threaten. So why not flash that ambition about, why not test your imagination? There is always the possibility that something - anything - can come true.