| Ketchup! |
[07 Oct 2009|02:36pm] |
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mood |
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 accomplished |
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music |
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"Hello, I Love You, Won't You Tell Me Your Name," the Doors |
] |
Maaan, I've hardly posted to my LJ at all! Today I think is a good day for catch-up!
- Summer road trip = AWESOME. I think all my LJ readers are at least peripherally aware that I spent most of June and July on the road. It went Fort Myers, Eustis, Atlanta, Paducah, Kansas City, Hays, Denver, Grand Junction, Salt Lake City, Winnemucca, Berkeley, Mountain View, Pacifica, Waldport, Portland (OR), Seattle, Vancouver (!), Seattle again, Missoula, Gardiner, Greybull, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, St. Paul, Madison, Chicago, Indianapolis, Knoxville, Charlotte, Savannah, Eustis again, and at last home to Fort Myers. I went from one of the most southeasterly points in America to the westernmost large city in Canada. There are stories from most of these places, but I already told those on my travel blog. :)
- Next step = LIBRARY SCHOOL. I'm now 90% sure that it's going to be USF-Tampa, one of the only two ALA-accredited schools in Florida. Just about all my paperwork is in, and I'm going to take a distance learning course in spring before plunging into the breach in summer. Many people earn their degrees in library science almost entirely through distance learning, but I don't want to go that route. This is too good an opportunity for me to finally earn/learn some independence. Besides, won't it be great to have classmates again? So I'm probably going to spend some portion of my spring driving back and forth from Tampa figuring out where to live and how I'm going to earn my keep once I'm there.
- Work = CHAOS. The economy is doing a number on everyone's checkbooks, but it turns out that doesn't mean they don't want their kids prepared for standardized tests. I'm getting more calls than ever before, but people stay on for fewer sessions; my clients are running out the back door as fast as others barge in the front. Keeping a coherent schedule is a mess and a challenge -- albeit not an entirely unwelcome one! Churn keeps the work novel. I said I wanted motion, and motion is what I'm getting!
- Literature = PROLIFIC. I've read more this year than any year since college, largely because I got into the habit and haven't gotten out of it. The Brothers Karamazov turns out to be the longest book I've ever read that was worth every page. Neil Gaiman turns out to be possibly the most consistently fun author I've read. And overall I turn out to still like fiction, which came as a relief; I spent most of high school loving fiction, but turned to nonfiction during and after college.
- Life = PRETTY OKAY! Generally when I make plans that I'm then scared about, it's a sign I'm doing something right, and that's how I feel recently. I'm kept grounded by my friends and by the Utena forum. One thing you can say for long-distance friendships is that you take them with you wherever you go. And I'm going...
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| Oh and more importantly |
[10 Sep 2009|01:02pm] |
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 anxious |
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As below |
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Yesterday I got an email from the University of South Florida at Tampa congratulating me on being admitted to their School of Library and Information Science! :D
There's still so much to do. Still need to apply to FSU-Tallahassee (the only other ALA-accredited library school in Florida). Still need to apply for scholarships and assistantships. Still need to figure out whether and when I'm moving -- these classes can all be taken via distance learning, but is that what I want? -- and whether I can get this done in three semesters or whether it's going to take four and whether I should start in spring, summer, fall, or what. It's scary! And yet, while I'm intimidated, I'm not knocked on my back by overpowering waves of inertia the way I was when I tried to look for grad schools in my fourth year of college. I believe in myself a little more. I know that I can make this happen if I want it to, even if in the end I have to take on debt or say "I'll worry about the money later." Regardless, this time it will be me making the decision. I didn't decide whether to go to high school or whether to go to college, not really; tutoring wasn't my idea either, and I haven't made this job work entirely on my own steam. If library school happens, that'll be my choice, my doing, for sure. I don't know if it would have been four years ago. And if for that reason alone, this long lacuna between college and grad school has been totally, totally worth it.
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| Media annoyance of the day |
[10 Sep 2009|12:48pm] |
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 annoyed |
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music |
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"Joking," Indigo Girls |
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So the President gave his big health-care address last night. I didn't get to see it because I was at work, but by most accounts it was good -- moderate-liberal, willingness to compromise on public option, blend of moral and fiscal arguments for universal health care, etc etc, and that's well and good.
But here's the cowardice of mainstream media for you. The word "lie" came out twice during the speech. Obama said it once, calling out Sarah Palin's claim that the bill created government "death panels" as "a lie, plain and simple." And Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina said it once, yelling "you lie!" at the podium when Obama made the claim that the bill did not cover illegal immigrants at taxpayer expense.
Th New York Times dutifully reported these unusual uses of the word "lie" in politics. It did not, however, stoop to tell us whether the claims were in fact lies. The bill is public domain. There is nothing stopping the Times from reading it and telling us whether it includes death panels or coverage for illegal immigrants. Yet in a four-column story about Wilson's outburst, the Times completely omits any mention of whether he was right or not; the story was entirely about the reaction from both sides of the aisle and the fallout afterward. Similarly with Obama's deployment of the word. Now in principle the Times's readers could go through the 1000+ page bill themselves and draw their own conclusions, but realistically that's not their job; it's the media's. Why didn't the Times do its job here?
My home state's St. Petersburg Times is less timid in its online PolitiFact service, whose exceptionally fair Truth-O-Meter section specializes in cases like these. Wilson's claim about illegal immigrants? False. Palin's claim about death panels? Not just false, but a "pants on fire" lie. How does PolitiFact know? They read the bill. And they explain their reasoning. What a concept.
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| Differing perspectives |
[01 Sep 2009|08:58pm] |
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 cheerful |
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music |
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"Reach Out to the Truth" |
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I was eating a late dinner tonight after tutoring, and as usual when I eat alone I had something to read. In this case it was an article in the Science Times about the various ways scientists are trying to overcome the physical barriers to decreasing the size of transistors (the things that make microchips work) much more than we already have. There were a bevy of ideas about how to use nanotechnology to push the minimum size down as far as it can possibly go, as well as how to replace electrical transistors with a different technology entirely. So I was reading this with fascination, and I turned to my littlest dog Cookie and said, "Cookie, we are an incredibly inventive race." And she replied, "I know! You guys invented stew!"
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| I'm off... |
[13 Jun 2009|01:22am] |
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mood |
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nervous |
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music |
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"Kansas City," Oklahoma! |
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...to take part in the myth of the road, to roll up my little katamari of moments on the highways, to try to lose myself enough to find myself. Mostly this will involve a lot of asphalt. Not sure how often I'll post to LJ on the road, but I'll try to keep Lover's Lanes up to date. See you later!
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| Naan desu ka?!? |
[07 Jun 2009|03:57pm] |
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chipper |
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"Where You Lead," Carole King |
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Way back when I was watching Yakitate!!, I thought naan might be fun to make. So today I actually did it. This was my first time baking bread of any kind, and it was awesome! I got to throw around terms like "second rising" and "fermentation," and knead and punch down the dough just like in the show. Then it went on the grill, and half an hour later all twenty-four pieces were thoroughly cooked and full of air bubbles. The naan is delicious. Flavorful and bready, with just a soupcon of garlic. My grandma was skeptical that bread could be cooked on a grill and insisted on cooking one piece of dough in a frying pan; the grill won this impromptu cook-off decisively.
Celebrating my first bread! :D
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| From far future to near future to now |
[25 May 2009|01:03pm] |
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mood |
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crazy |
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music |
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"The 59th Street Bridge Song," Simon & Garfunkel |
] |
Actual photo forthcoming when I have a camera handy.
Friends, I've bought my first car. It's a 2009 Mazda3 i Touring, bought new. She's got a four-cylinder 2L engine, light on options but with a lot of standard features -- cruise control, automatic windows and locks, 17" wheels, antilock brakes, and all kinds of other stuff that I don't even know what it means. For an economy car she drives beautifully; nice pickup, not too much road noise, quiet engine, and like the TARDIS she's bigger on the inside than she is on the outside. The fuel efficiency is not fantastic at around 25 mpg combined, but the price was right.
This is the car that will take me on my cross-country trip this summer. I haven't given her a name yet.
What's astonishing is that the act of buying a car was conceived, planned, and executed by me. I had some advice from my dad and from Edmunds.com, but the decisions along the way were mine and I made them. For someone who has trouble taking initiative I did a good job on this car. And of course now I'm wondering, was this the right decision, it's a lot of money, etc etc... but it was a right decision, and more importantly it was a decision.
And now I have decided to take a nap.
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| Baby's first car |
[22 May 2009|05:26pm] |
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mood |
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chipper |
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music |
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Salsa hold music |
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You guys, I'm totally going to buy a car in the next week or so. With the big summer road trip on the horizon it's about time. I've test-driven several; I like the Mazda3 and the Honda Fit, and to a lesser extent the Hyundai Elantra and VW Rabbit. Did not like the Ford Focus. Does anyone have any experience with any of these cars? Any recommendations? Car-shopping advice? (Besides "use Edmunds.com," which I've already discovered to my delight.)
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| Kare~! |
[18 Apr 2009|05:31pm] |
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mood |
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cheerful |
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music |
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"To All Tha Dreamers," Yakitate!! Japan |
] |
Well, no one switched bodies like in Utena, and no one went into bullet time and started dodging coconuts like in Yakitate!! Japan, but I made a curry, and it was good! Chicken thigh, onions, and sweet potatoes in coconut milk over basmati rice -- and of course a nice, fairly sweet curry powder darkening all of it. I can still smell it. Mmmm. Can hardly wait till I'm hungry enough to have the leftovers. Too much salt, though, and it needed a vegetable. Carrots? Or maybe apples? Can you curry apples? If that works it would be fantastic.
And yeah, I've been watching Yakitate!! Japan. I'm towards the end of the "new bakers' competition" arc, where the closing music video is a three-dimensional rendering of the ridiculously muscular Nabeshin-looking bread-shop owner dancing a very intense disco. I've gotta say, once you get over the initial shock and horror, it's one of the best closing music videos I've seen in anime. Compelling in a terrible way. :D
I've been depressed -- the curry is staving it off long enough for me to write this post -- but so what else is new. I'm taking a DSM-oriented personality test on Wednesday which I'm very much afraid is going to show one or more personality disorders. Meanwhile, though, I'll try to stay light and continue teaching myself Go with the help of an excellent series of books by Janice Kim called Learn to Play Go, which I heartily recommend for anyone who knows the rules of the game but not how to play. Skip book one.
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| Don't panic |
[10 Apr 2009|02:47pm] |
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optimistic |
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music |
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"Houki Kumo," Yakitate!! |
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To the IRGers who read this blog: yes, I know the forum is down. I've called Gio and she's calling Yasha. There's some kind of mix-up with credit cards. We don't know when the forum will be back up, but the downage is not, repeat not, permanent. The worst-case scenario I can think of is that Yasha will be unable to contact the server admins today and they'll be closed all weekend, in which case we might not have the forum till early next week.
Until then, enjoy life off the forum :)
Update: Yasha's gotten in touch with the host and the billing issues are sorted out. The site will be back up soon.
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| I mean, why bother, when it's like this? |
[02 Apr 2009|07:42pm] |
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 uncomfortable |
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music |
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"Knight Moves," Suzanne Vega |
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Today I was walking the dogs with my dad. They're small dogs and pretty reliable, so we don't normally put them on leashes, but we take leashes along just in case. So about three minutes into the walk our middle dog, Chili, decided he'd eat a lollipop stick someone had discarded by the side of the road. Dad yelled at him to drop it, then to come. As you might expect, this didn't work very well, and Chili backed away with the stick still in his mouth. I told Dad that Chili wasn't going to come as long as Dad was screaming at him, but I didn't have a visible impact. So instead I circled around behind Chili, got down on my knees, and coaxed him to come to me. This worked. It usually does. I picked him up and brought him to Dad, who promptly leashed him and then started jerking him around in the air with the leash. It looked fairly painful. "He's a dog being a dog!" I told Dad. "He doesn't listen," said Dad. So I turned around and went home, saying I didn't want to be a part of this.
Now I'm not sure which is worse: the fact that I brought Chili to Dad when I could have reasonably guessed that Dad would do something like that, or my own hypocrisy, since I've occasionally been just about that nasty to the dogs when I've walked them by myself and they've misbehaved. I hate seeing myself in him at moments like this. I hope he feels as horrible about himself after this episode as I do when I'm driven to do what he did. But that doesn't fix anything. We have to actually be able to control our anger, and while I don't know if he has ever made any effort to control himself -- I sort of doubt it, since I've never heard him express any remorse for it -- I know that I have made that effort, and it's generally been in vain. I could slit my throat, but instead I'll go for a jog. That's about the extent of my anger management: find something else to do instead of dealing with the problem.
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| Gettin' old |
[14 Mar 2009|01:59am] |
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 bemused |
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music |
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"Villain," Marik (who knows the words "accentuate" and "nemesis") |
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In something like a month I'll celebrate -- or observe, anyway -- the end of my third year as a tutor. Recently my kids have been making me wonder if there's something to the "Google makes you stupid" theory. I've had two straight clients (high schoolers) read a particular SAT passage and come up short on the meaning of virtue. I don't mean that they didn't know the meaning of virtue in the philosophical sense, as in "the warrior who deserts his master will die without knowing the meaning of virtue;" I mean they literally didn't know the definition of the word "virtue." Not in that "I know it but I can't articulate it" way, either; in that "I'm not conscious of ever having heard this word before" way.
Then today I was doing some light ACT reading with my most recent client, and she didn't know what "persistence" meant. PERSISTENCE. If she didn't know what "diligence" meant I could just about accept that, but persistence? What the hell word has she been using for sticking to it all this time? I'm pretty sure I learned that word when I was four from Mother Goose. What I'm saying is that if you told some high schoolers today "persistence is a virtue," they would hear "quing is a quang." Not public high schools, either. The two most elite private schools in the area. And for the most part these kids are, in other ways, bright and even talented.
Obviously lolcats have been falling down on the job. I haven't seen any "persistent cat is persistent" jpegs, nor "what does the scouter say about Jesus's virtue level? IT'S OVER 9000!!!" animated gifs.
On the other hand, I no longer think I'm a particularly good tutor, if I ever did, so I guess my kids and I are even.
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| The end of music? |
[26 Feb 2009|02:03am] |
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annoyed |
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music |
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"Never Got to Love You," Anjani |
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Hi all! I know at least a couple of you make music your lives, or at least are really big into it, so I'm hoping you can answer a few questions I have. I know nothing about music. :/
These questions grew out of a discussion about copyright, fair use, and so on that grew up on the Utena forum because of WMG taking down everything in sight with their artists' music in it from YouTube. I discovered I can't participate in the ideological component of this discussion because of my bias; I'd be arguing in bad faith. But I'm interested in the questions of fact surrounding the debate, and the one I'm most interested in is the claim that if you don't adequately protect the rights of artists they'll stop producing art. So music buffs help me out?
- Am I right in thinking that revenue from record sales has fallen by something like 30% since 2001?
- If so, since people seem to listen to just as much music now as they did in 2001, is there any explanation for this astonishing fall in sales other than the legal and illegal market restructuring growing out of the burgeoning Internet?
- Compared to 2001, how robust is the Top 40 scene? (By "robust" I mean approximately whether it's comparatively as innovative, durable, diverse, and good as it was then.)
- Compared to 2001, how robust is the indie scene?
- Compared to 2001, how robust are other genres of music (folk, country, etc.)?
- If any of these genres are less robust than they were in 2001, do you think it's attributable to falling record sales and/or Internet piracy?
- If any of these genres are more robust than they were in 2001, how did they overcome falling record sales and Internet piracy?
Thank you! I'm sorry to be a bother, but these are the kinds of questions you can't Google; it takes a subject expert to answer them.
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| The final proof that I am crazy |
[09 Feb 2009|02:01pm] |
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mood |
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 determined |
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So guys, sometimes things don't seem so good for me. I'm sad a lot of the time, more than normal, and I feel like I'm missing something. So I'm thinking about doing what red-blooded Americans always do when they feel like they're missing something. I'm thinking about going on a road trip.
But not just any road trip. I'm envisioning a ten-thousand-mile odyssey, starting this summer, that would take me from my home in Florida through Texas to Los Angeles and up to Seattle, over through Idaho to Kansas City and Chicago, through the Rust Belt to Pittsburgh and up to Boston, then down to New York and through Charlotte, detouring into Kentucky and Tennessee before finally pitching through Atlanta to return to my starting place. Or something like that; I haven't really decided yet. Along the way I'd stop and ask strangers for their love stories. I want to write a book. All kinds of love stories that explore all kinds of romantic and sexual love, the good and the bad, the whole variety of human experience -- with me sort of framing the tale with introspection, travelogue, and whatever fragments of wisdom I can shore together from people's experiences.
Does this sound ambitious? It sounds ambitious to me. In fact, I'm scared shitless. Even apart from the fact that I'm an introvert not naturally inclined to go up to people and say "hey, tell me a love story," pitching through the dark sea of America without a lighthouse is asking to be ground into the rocks. But -- if this goes off the way I hope it will -- it'll be a hell of a story. The kind of thing you point to if anyone asks what you did with your life.
I'm calling it Lover's Lanes. If this journey sounds interesting to you, please do visit my blog and subscribe! And by the way, if you live in America, the odds are pretty good my path will take me near you. I can't tell you how much I'd appreciate looking forward to a nice place to stay that isn't a Motel 6, just for a night or two. Any takers?
And any comments? Is this too crazy to work? Would people even talk to me about their love stories? Or would I be better off spending my summer catching up on video games?
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| In the alternate universe where I am a librarian |
[07 Feb 2009|02:32pm] |
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mood |
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chipper |
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HER: Um, hi there! I'm looking for a book?
ME: You came to the right place!
HER: It's for my daughter's summer reading. "A Midsummer's Night Dream."
ME [scratching chin]: "A Midsummer's Night Dream..." Hmm, that one doesn't ring a bell!
HER: Can you look it up in the catalogue or something?
ME: Sure, I guess I can do that! [typity typity] Nope, no record of any book called "A Midsummer's Night Dream."
HER: That's weird! I think it's by Shakespeare or something.
ME: No, I know Shakespeare pretty well, and I'm pretty positive he never wrote anything called "A Midsummer's Night Dream."
HER: I must be thinking of something else. Sorry to bother you! [turns to leave]
ME: Whoa, wait a second. [face screwed up in concentration]
HER: Yes?
ME: You know, now that I think of it, I think he may have written something called "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Could that be what you meant?
HER: Um, yes.
ME: We have like twenty copies of that one. Let me go grab it for you. Anything else I can do for you?
HER: Yeah, the other book on my daughter's reading list. "Tequila Mockingbird?"
ME: [pulls out sawed-off shotgun]
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[01 Feb 2009|07:30pm] |
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Am I really so alone in this? Someone must have some wisdom...
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| I need to see you naked, your body and your thought |
[31 Jan 2009|11:42pm] |
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mood |
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despondent |
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On vacation in Springfield, Missouri! Went to a strip club tonight, my first time in such an establishment! Everyone was having fun, including, I think, most of the dancers. Really there was almost nothing tawdry about it. When the dancers weren't on stage they were mingling with the crowd, chatting with patrons, hoping to be taken on for lap dances. Actually, for the first ten minutes or so, the novelty overpowered everything else and I was really enjoying myself. I even chatted with a really cute stripper who'd just moved to Branson a week ago. Then she got on stage and showed her stuff, which was considerable and absolutely beautiful.
It was a few minutes later that I started to cry. A few tears at first, then sobbing, tears snot and drool. I removed myself to a table in the corner to be out of the way.
I'm still not sure what the big fucking deal was. It had something to do with the false intimacy that's implied when a woman takes her clothes off for a paying audience. It had a lot to do with how much I want real intimacy, and how little luck I've had finding it. Of course, I have intimate friends. Quite a few of them, actually, and quite a few former intimate friends I've fallen out of touch with that I might someday be lucky enough to welcome back into my life. But no one who'll take her clothes off for me. My friends are unanimous in agreement that I'm a good guy (albeit with a few problems) who's not selfish or an asshole, but that doesn't count for squat when I'm not sexy and am more vulnerable than confident. I just couldn't watch women flaunting on stage in exchange for my money what I may never be able to get for free. I'm not even asking for a permanent relationship. I'm just asking for a good friend who'll sleep with me. But I can't find even that because I'm such a mess and I'm not hot enough to make people overlook it.
Tantalus was this guy from Greek myth who pissed off the gods somehow and as punishment was placed in a special part of Hades, in a pool of water surrounded by fruit trees. He was maddeningly thirsty, but whenever he bent to drink the water receded just beyond his grasp. Ravenously hungry, Tantalus too found that the fruit trees would bend as he reached for the succulent delicacies on their branches, remaining just out of reach. Forever.
Though I asked her to not worry about me and have fun, Katelyn insisted on spending the evening with me talking me through it, and it made me feel better, sort of. Ultimately, though, her words of hope feel like just another just-out-of-reach fruit tree to me, as does Katelyn herself. I'm so sorry I have to be like this. I don't know why I can't decide to be happy with the manifold blessings I enjoy every day and not yearn for more so much that I spend a fun outing to a strip club crying in a corner.
My friends, I value you more than anything. Without you there would be nothing left. <3
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| Mental hygiene |
[28 Jan 2009|02:33pm] |
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mood |
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nauseated |
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I hate money so much there is no word for how much I hate it.
It's not that I don't have any. Actually, I have more than most people my age I know. It's just that I hate it. Earning it, having it, spending it, giving it away. I hate all of it.
Anyone who's known me for any length of time knows I get overwhelmed easily. Well, with money the effect is tenfold. Buying something that costs $50 causes me as much stress and preemptive buyer's remorse as most people experience when they buy something for $500. Today I wanted to look up my insurance's prescription drug plan and was reduced almost to tears by how hard the information was to find. I mean, frustration is inevitable when dealing with health insurance companies, but I was completely paralyzed, almost catatonic. Similarly when I think about moving out and paying my own bills (which is still the plan, though I've pushed back the date a bit). And when it comes to earning money, i.e. going to work, my four hours of work a day consume so much psychic energy that I am usually wiped out before and after for the whole day.
The good news, sort of, is that the reason I was looking up my prescription drug benefits is that I'm going to start antianxiety medication. My dad convinced me to go to a new shrink (the first time in many months I've been in mental health counseling); we had our first session today and she's prescribed Klonopin and Trileptal. She seems nice, like she knows what she's doing, but then so have my past psychiatrists and they've never done me any good. And of course the sessions are incredibly expensive and the drugs aren't exactly cheap either -- even assuming my insurance decides to cover them, which I never did figure out. So I am trying. But I'm just so shell-shocked already, and my workday hasn't even started yet. :'(
I'm just trying to hang in there till Friday, when I'm going to Missouri for vacation. That will be stressful too, but I hope it will be at least as relaxing as it is stressful, and that I come home with good stories. <3
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| Third annual annual retrospective! |
[01 Jan 2009|01:20pm] |
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mood |
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accomplished |
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music |
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"Take This Waltz," Leonard Cohen |
] |
January 1, 2009 is clear, sunny, and inviting. The day stretches before me with possibilities, but I'm probably just gonna play video games :P
Top Ten Things Brian Did in 2008
10. Completed a second full year of tutoring, 12/31. I've been going at it for two and a half years now with no end in sight. That's good and bad, I guess. Memory: sitting in the bathroom after a session trying to compose myself for the next.
9. Road trip to Charlotte, 10/10-10/14. A nice drive, but my grandparents' house in Rock Hill turned out to be flea-infested, which sort of wrecked that part of the trip for me. Still, I got to see my wonderful bro and meet his kitten Vladimir, who has designs on the nation of Georgia. Memory: watching some TV show about a guy with government secrets in his brain who works at a Best Buy on Alex's computer.
8. Liveblogged the election, 11/4. Actually, I followed the election obsessively all year, but it culminated in my heroic effort to liveblog it on Election Day using the Utena forum as a soapbox. Turns out liveblogging is really hard! You want to type something informative or analytical, but things are moving so fast that you can only present the facts. Memory: Mylene kept beating me to all the news :P Oh, and Obama won!
7. Toured New York with Moon Hee, 5/30. God, I hadn't seen her in so long! And touring the city she loves, all the way down Fifth Avenue and across town by subway, was a great way to catch up. I love you, Moo! Memory: too many to count, so how about scouring FAO Schwarz in vain looking for a stuffed fox?
6. Made tough moderating decisions on IRG, year-round. There's been a ban or two this year, and some situations that didn't end in a ban but had to be handled with a tricky combination of diplomacy and honesty that is taking me a while to get the hang of. I'm proud of how it all came out, though, and how the forum continues to thrive! Memory: watching the "troublemakers" either leave voluntarily or evolve into valuable contributing members to the forum! :)
5. Kicked off an important new friendship, mid-November. I'm gonna be reticent about this one for a little while yet ;) Memory: chatting with her by phone at midnight on New Year's Eve!
4. Read about my dad's family history, late August. An uninterrupted story of advancement and achievement ever since great-grandpa came over on the fruit boat from Italy. Depressed the hell out of me since I don't have anything like the ambition of my ancestors, but I learned a lot about my heritage! Memory: Biking in the pouring rain to and from the Ten Mile Linear Park nearby to clear my head.
3. Had anger management issues, primarily June, August, and December. I'm presently bottling up my anger as much as I can, and since it's evidently inadequate I've got to figure out how to not let things get to me so much. This has always been a problem for me :/ Memory: scaring the hell out of myself and my parents on multiple occasions.
2. Began touring apartments, circa 11/15. I'm totally moving out! The deal isn't sealed yet, and I'm not going to rush things, but I think I know where I'll be living and I have a lot of the stuff I'll be taking there. With luck this will feature high up on next year's list! Memory: feeling I could easily live in the very first place I toured... then watching my options get even better from there.
1. Attended RoseCon, 5/29-6/2. Such a fantastic and unique time that I wrote an epic miniseries of blog posts about it back in June. At the same time, the most stressful and trying thing I've done voluntarily this year. I learned that people are unreliable, and that's okay, but you have to find a way to cope. Memory: Balthazar. Oh my God, Balthazar. And the screenings and the Staten Island ferry...
Happy New Year! And thanks to everyone who helped me get through a somewhat rocky (but eventful!) 2008.
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