End-of-the-year update

I haven't made an earnest post in a while, so here goes everything that's been up in the past buncha days.

I haven't been busy. Contrary to my constant lack of time, I've actually had very little to do since mid-November. With the exception of one or two papers for classes (notably, modern drama), I've had a blissful amount of free time. I think most of that time ended up being devoured by Adium. Maybe part of my New Year's resolution should be to cut back on instant messengers. I've definitely noticed a drop in productivity since I've started using them nonstop, even when I don't have much to write to anybody. To exemplify: I used to make blog posts.

I made the conscious effort to have weekly updates to my vlog since the beginning of this semester. As can be plainly seen, those efforts were fruitless. I now have 67 episodes posted in the span of, oh... a year and eight months now. I don't even really know how much longer I'm gonna carry the thing. It doesn't seem to have all that many viewers, and the reason I made it in the first place feels like it's gotten severely muddled in these 20 months.

Over Thanksgiving break, we went up to Racine to see my mom's side of the family. The drive was nightmarishly long, as always. But we got to see the family, which was nice, and Grandma and Grandpa's new dogs are incredibly friendly, so it was a good time.

I had lost my main set of car keys back at the end of November. The last place I had taken them out was inside Blockbuster, but I had also been in my friends' room before I realized they were missing. I went to Blockbuster the next day to see if anyone found them, but nobody had. I also asked my friends if they were in there, several times, but to no avail. The day I was heading home for the break, I got a call from Matt saying that he was throwing away an old newspaper and he heard it jingle. He thought to himself, "newspapers don't jingle," and he opened up the paper and found my keys. I picked them up from his place once I had my car all loaded for the trip home.

On the love scene... things are frozen until the semester starts again, which is in another twelve days. I've had more than enough time to reflect on all of what's been said thus far, and (probably to my detriment) so has my crush. The whole thing was an interesting series of events, to be sure.

I still hate ice. So much so that I'm holding back swears right now.

I got my grade reports once I got back home. Three A's, a B-, and a C+ spell a 3.4 GPA for the semester. Still pretty darn good, considering what I'd used to be getting at Doane. I had a lot of blood pressure going over the C+, though. The first day after it had been recorded, my official grades were showing me having earned 0 credit hours for the class. Since that professor had said that anything above a C would be for credit... well, you get it.

Christmas went pretty well, overall. I got my brother the Fall/Winter EP by Jon Foreman, my sister the soundtrack to Songs For a New World, my dad Michael Chrichton's Next, my mom The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (the "wonderful" denotes that this is the book, not the movie), and my brother's wife a Klonoa game for the Game Boy Advance. I got an Xbox 360, a couple of shirts, Left 4 Dead for the PC, season two of The Office, and the first two seasons of 3rd Rock From the Sun on DVD. My dad's parents got me a new wallet, but it unfortunately doesn't have the same card flap thingy that my current wallet has. I keep a bunch of miscellaneous cards in that flap thingy, so I rank it as pretty important, but my current wallet is getting rather floppy from too much existing. I'm gonna keep using my current wallet for as long as I can, then switch over.

I think my New Year's resolution this time around is going to be for me to be more patient with people, and to do my best to be more friendly to everyone. I can safely say that this will be tough, but I kind of thought resolutions were supposed to be tough. God knows, I failed at staying sane this year, and that was my last resolution. But yeah.

I'm registered for classes now. I'm taking a 400-level this semester, which should be... insightful, but the good news is that I have my insane power walk from Andersen to Oldfather yet again. I also need to look at jobs at the temp agency. And browse Husker Hire Link. And give away more information about who I am and where I live.

Yeah, 2009... it sure is gonna be... something.