Sitting in the lap of luxury

What is luxury?

Wearing nothing but silk boxers and bathrobe while sipping a vodka sour. That's luxury.

Merry Christmas to all

After I opened my couple presents, I went online and found no one has written a blog wishing people a merry Christmas, at least of those that I read, so I thought it was my duty to do so. I'm sure everyone is busy spending time with family, eating, and of course enjoying their new toys. In years past that is certainly how I spent my Christmas. This year is a much more low-key Christmas, and thus I have time to write. My dad and I, and possibly my mother, are going to see Narnia soon, and we are having prime rib tonight, a meal that I am certainly looking forward to.

Last night was pretty low key too, I did go to a candlelight service with my family, because my mom really wanted to go to one(our church doesn't do candlelight services, so we went to another one), then I went to midnight mass at a catholic church downtown for the second year in a row. I'm not sure why, but I really enjoy going to it.

Well, I must be off, so Merry Christmas, and if I don't talk to you until then, Happy New Year too.

Questions

What is your passion? What's mine? Do you follow yours, or just push it to the side? Is it something noble, like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick? Something less serious, like cooking, painting, playing the guitar? Do you hope to making a living out of it, or just do it as an aside? Do you like talking about your passion? Does anyone like to listen? If they laugh, does it matter? Does it consume your life, or does it just add to your life? If your passion was taken away would your life be less fulfilling? Would it even matter?

How do you find your passion?

"Failure is temporary, giving up makes it permenant"

I saw King Kong last night and it was spectacular. Peter Jackson showed that he can make a great movie outside of the Lord of the Rings. The only real negative I can think about is that it was simply too long. Although I can't really think of anything that I would want to get cut out, which is probably one of the things that makes him such a great director, I can sit through 3 hours of film, and think every moment was great. Why do I say it was too long then? Well, after about two hours or so I found my self wondering where Mrs. Kong was, or mommy and daddy Kong. I also sat there wondering how, biologically, this could possibly happen, since all other evidence shows that when animals are in a contained ecosystem, like on Skull Island, they shrink, not grow, yet everything on that island was big. Where did Kong get all of his food, not mentioned the dinosaurs too. Even though Jackson failed to answer those pressing questions, I would still highly recommend this movie to anyone, just so long as you don't ask me along, I don't think I want to see it again any time soon, and I would be highly shocked if it didn't get at least a nomination for best picture.

In other news, I got a 3.83 GPA this quarter, the one class that ruined me was Management Information Systems, which I got a 3.4 in, I got 4.0 in the other two. I should probably be proud of that, since those two other classes were 400 level courses, which means that they were pretty advanced, and thus more difficult, but as usual I am actually a little ashamed of my grades. Not because they are too low, but because I don't really feel like I earned them. Don't get me wrong, I didn't cheat or did anything unethical to get those grades, I just don't feel like I really worked hard enough to have earned that 4.0. This seems like a constant "problem" I have had. I remember when I was homeschooled getting ready to start highschool, being worried that I was going to have to work really hard to keep up, since I hadn't done any sort of school for so long, but then it turned out to be a breeze. Then junior year approached and I again I started to worry, since everyone said that junior year was the hardest, but once again it was simple. Same story for starting college, and actually this summer I was a little worried, since I was going to be starting the higher level courses, but those fears seems once again to be misplaced.

I guess I really only feel bad in comparison to others, since other people in my classes are always telling me, or people in general, how hard they have to study for these classes, and I see them in class furiously taking notes, or flipping through their heavily highlighted book, and I sit through class with a closed notebook and book, sitting back in my chair, and invariably I end up getting at least as high, if not a higher grade than them. I'm not really sure what the point in saying all of this, it's just been on my mind the past few days. It certainly is in no way a complaint, since only a fool would complain about not having to study, and I am of course not trying to brag or anything, so I guess do with it as you see fit.

One Year and Counting...

It has been one year to the day that I started this blog, so it seemed appropriate to celebrate this annivisary with a new posting. This also marks my first full day home from the quarter. Yes, it is finally over(at least for me). I made it through another quarter without failing any classes, or quitting the whole stupid thing all together. As you might be able to figure out from my previous statement, I don't care too much for school at the moment. I tend to go back and forth between absolute hatred of the thing and a strong dislike of it. I'm at the hatred point at the moment, although this isn't too unusual for the end of a quarter, although I didn't feel that way until Monday morning, just as I was finishing up one of my tests. It wasn't the test that was bad, nor the question I was answering that was bad, but it just made me think. The question was about whether going to a graduate school was "worth it", and we had to look at it from at least two different methods that we had learned this quarter. The first way of course would be too look simply at the financial benefit, and it woudl certainly be worth it from that percepective, I would make way more than I would with simply a college degree. The other way I looked at it was through preference, and this is when the hatred of school started to come out. I realized that even though I would make a lot more money, it simply wasn't worth it to me, having to live through another 3 or so years of school, and that's what I put as my answer, of course I tried to make it sound more economic sounding than that.

Other than renewing my hatred of school, I walked out of this quarter with a new ability to draw graphs of any shape or type, and even more impressivly I can actually explain the graphs too, although that will probably only last another week or so, it seems to be slipping away from me quickly, but the graphs themselves are seared into my mind forever. So if any of you have need of a graph, you know who to come to.

In other news, I made it over the pass without any problem. It was actually a little bit of a disappointment. There was snow and all, but not on the roads, in fact the roads were dry and perfectly clear. I went 70-75 the whole way, except where that rockslide happened, where I went 35. I was glad that I had no problems, but also a little disappointed that it was so easy, I was hoping for some sort of challenge or near-death experience.

I will leave you with a great quote that Matt reminded me of by one of our great founding fathers, "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants to see us happy."