Archive for December, 2009
Subject
Over the past few days I’ve been picking out subjects to take for the upcoming semester. I think it’s mostly going to work, although all the bidding and stuff will take place over the next few days. Of note, I’m taking up my first Literature subject in a long, long while. Let me count… It’s been some seven or eight years. The last thing I remember doing was The Crucible.
There’ve been quite a number of restrictions, and for a semester where I was looking forward to a fair degree of freedom in my subject choices, I didn’t really have very much to choose from. I’m settling on some Sociology and a really odd subject, plus all the other Engineering things.
I had in my consideration some Japanese Studies, some Economics, some Geography, and some Philosophy. In the end, the seemingly arbitrary restrictions and timetable problems forced me to go in the way that I’ve set my stuff up right now.
In spite of my complaints, I think it’s the first semester where I’ve actually been able to choose more than one subject. I kind of like that feeling. Too bad I won’t be here for too much longer, so I probably won’t get to savour this feeling for very much more.
Well, I’m sure I won’t be saying that once the bidding wars start.
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Goodbye, Noughties
Well, to my mind, that’s a terrible way of referring to the decade of the zeroes, but I suppose that’s the only time it’ll ever appear on this page.
It’s the last week of 2009, and I guess this is where we say goodbye to it and imagine that it will say goodbye to us too. It’s been an odd year, to say the least, but certainly far from the worst.
But looking ahead, we’ve got plenty of stuff to do. Top of the list, of course, is getting published. While this has pretty much been on every New Year’s list, I think we’ve made a tiny bit of headway this year, and whether it ends in success or failure for The River, there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
That also reminds me that I’ll definitely be writing in the upcoming year. And quite a bit, most probably.
I want to travel too. My family wants to go somewhere, and we’re thinking of Europe for now. On the other hand, I would like to go somewhere with my friends, so I better start tricking people right now.
Speaking of tricking people, I’d like to attend more performances next year, in the way of plays, concerts, musicals and the like. So, yes, it will be a year where my abilities as a confidence trickster will be put to the test.
I’m supposed to shift my room over to the current guest room. After that happens, I want to make it a more personal kind of space by doing little things with my display items and so on. I wonder if it’ll have an effect on my work.
I have to start preparing for my final year project. So I better start learning useful things.
At the end of this year, I began to realise where my money was going. Now, that’s not to say that they’ve all been bad things, but I would like a little redistribution so that I can spend more in some areas by spending less in others.
Camera plans. Yes, I’d like to put them in place. I’d also like to go about shooting more.
One of my friends asked me about this gathering that I used to hold for my classmates from JC. Then another asked. And then someone from the army asked if I was going to have a gathering for them. I think next year will be a good year to hold some gatherings, and the challenge will be to figure out how to hold it so that I can get three different gatherings in a row for three different sets of people. I’m surely not going to last in a marathon party. It’d be good, however, to have something like that, just as a sort of punctuation mark.
And finally (for now), I want to send more mail. I want to send cards, postcards and letters to people who’d read them. And failing that, I’d like to send emails to some folks. Apart from that, in a related issue, I’d like to do more little things for people. Give them random little presents. Buy them chocolate. And so on.
So, here’s to an awesome 2010.
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Exceptionally Unexceptional
Results
Results day came and went, and my results (as they so often have a habit of doing) turned out exceedingly normal. It pulled my cumulative grade point average up slightly, though that’s nothing to write home about. Still, I’m relieved to survive, though slightly unhappy that it’s not better than what it is. No room for regrets, though. It’s better just to keep your head down and carry on working at it the next semester.
Christmas Time
All right, it’s time to look forward to Christmas. The years have been unkind and I can’t do so with the same exuberance that I would possess when I was younger. It’s hard to look forward to anything when it feels like just the same old stuff year in year out. My family has stopped putting up trees.
Today I’m sending out some email greetings. Just simple greetings. I used to SMS people, but I’ve found that to be slightly on the troublesome side of things. So it’s emails this year. Simple, uninteresting emails, really. But we’ll see when we get to composing them.
I did send out a few cards earlier. I like mail. That is, the slow mail. The snail mail. The Please Mr. Postman mail. I like receiving stuff, but no one sends me anything, and I’m too lousy at sending people things. I’m trying to change that, of course, so this year, I’ve resumed what once used to be a family tradition. I sent out my own cards. It’s been years since I’ve done anything like that. Well, in fact, it’s the first time I’ve sent Christmas cards on my own.
I should make that one of my objectives for the upcoming year, sending more stuff to more people. In fact, I should make a list of objectives for 2010. Yes, I will do that next time. Maybe next week. In some post-Christmas pre-2010 post.
Couple Of Links
What various people read this year. [via The Book Bench]
Antarctic sea life. [via Mail Online]
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Day Of Reckoning
You there! Do you know what day it is tomorrow? Why, it’s the day of reckoning! Results day! Yes, the day when poor, harmless students cower in fear, quiver in fright, shiver in despair. Lovely day it will be! Unless you happen to be a student, in which case you ought to prepare to cower and quiver and shiver, like me.
There’s always something strangely faceless and terrifying about checking your results online. You just punch in your account information and click. Before you can even hope for the best, all your results pop up in front of you like a summons. That is, assuming you don’t sometimes have a connection like mine. (I imagine it will in that case be somewhat like a Hitchcock film.)
I suppose the good times are almost up. Time runs away like Usain Bolt with the baton when you’re not looking. I excel at bad metaphors.
I’ve still been at my chores. Yesterday, I tried to pack up my music library a bit. I cleaned it up quite properly, if I dare say so myself, but it’s still incomplete, so I’ll have to get back to it. Shopping has been going fairly well, but it too is incomplete. I’ve made inquiries about the various things I’ve got to sort out, which is all very dandy, but I’ve yet to actually sort them out. So everything is in that sort of stasis, reluctant to be completed. But it’s getting there.
Although we don’t have much of the holidays left. But who knows what will happen tomorrow anyway? Wish me luck.
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