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No grand New Year's resolutions from me. I make them every week, or every quarter, or what have you, as they come. I thought I might take some time for reflection, though, because my memory is having trouble fitting all of the events of 2004 into just 12 months!


As a student for almost all of my life, I have difficulty considering a calender year as a continuous space of time. My natural system is the academic year. Given that, this calender year was even MORE dijointed than usual - I feel I've had four, maybe five, distinct time periods in 2004, that in retrospect seem like they can't POSSIBLY have all been so recent.

January - February: I worked with the AUAP students as a peer advisor. I stressed out, I found my self confidence does NOT do well in big groups even if I can lead small ones. I also made some great friends. I went to Canada a few times and saw GBS perform (when they played 'Penelope' I almost lost it - Kiyo-chan and I used to sing it together), and saw [livejournal.com profile] crazyasterix twice - by plan, at the concert, and later this year by complete accident in the middle of downtown Vanny. Weird, no? Tsuru, my Beta fish of the overflowing personality, died shortly after the AUAP students left.

March - June: Somewhere in here I moved out of BT and into BW, with the all-important room-mate changes that introduced me to [livejournal.com profile] ribbitkisser, who's now one of my close friends here at school. Someone I'm capable of living with - little fishes be praised! This was a very eventful couple of months as family goes. On the fun side, my cousin Kelsey got married. On the other side (of life, and of my family), my (great) Grandad passed away, after a short hospital stay. Almost all of the familly was there, and at almost 92, Grandad had lived a very full life. If any of you are ever in portland, visit the willamette dam and look out at the mill, and remember that my great Grandfather used to work there. My rabbit, Edwin, also died this spring, in more violent circumstances.

June - July: Vagabonding in Europe. Grandad's illness, death, and service meant a lot of Bellingham-Portland round trips, all during the last three weeks of school. My flight left a week after I finally got back to Oly, disorganised, living out of a duffel, and still reeling from that crazy last few weeks. I've never been so unprepared for something so big. And yet...I loved it. It was amazing, a single outlook shaping experience, esp. in the area of self-image, as odd as that is. I am now bewitched by the francophone outlook on life and pleasure, and working to appease my anglophone work ethic, which I value, while freeing my more hedonistic side, which tends to get shut in a closet under layers of guilt. In this endeavor I had some, heh, hands-on instruction abroad. I'm still processing, all the new information is still percolating. The trip pushed my limits, and it felt good.

August - September: the rag-tag end of summer included a little bit of work at Windfall Lumber, another cousin's marriage, a gig for my father and I, and freedom-to-family transitioning stress. I did get to see [livejournal.com profile] westrider before he left for a long sojourn in Europe, teaching brittish kids math in Germany. I've been thinking about his phrase "Friends are more important than sleep" a lot. i think he said more important than money, too...which could explain the much greater number of international letters and phone calls this year. My christmas cards and letters have gone out to the UK, Frane, and Japan.

September - December: School's up, focus is hard, the housing situation's a total drag. But BS of Comics is really in bloom, my comic work and webpage skills were getting a lot of practice, and I met fun new people - [livejournal.com profile] sinman, [livejournal.com profile] masterrobyn, and [livejournal.com profile] oolong, to name a few. The Bugle, a real shock at first, seems like a possibility now, if a delayed one. My personal webpage is a viable idea now as well, depending on funds and time. I had some paying contract work, attended contra dances, and worked my ass off on grad school apps (technically, more of the ass was removed by weekly swimming with [livejournal.com profile] zair99). My Christmas break was wonderful - aside from a week and a half of working on essays, which my parents were VERY helpful with, we had a very relaxing time, with even a bit of good ol' crew party-ing, and a smattering of music.



Now, I'm going to take this beautiful free winter monday, and get my ass in gear. I'll see you BS-ers at the Black Drop tonight!

Date: 2005-01-04 04:30 pm (UTC)From: [identity profile] ribbitkisser.livejournal.com
Woo! I made it into your year in review. and who thought it would have all started with a fone call about invasions, aliens and midevil kiiiiinigits!

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