Happy New Year!

I can’t believe it’s time for yet another one of these but here we go. Goodbye 2008 and hello 2009.

I started out in January hearing about possible candidates for the election and became very anti-Huckabee, among others. I went out to see the Quadrantids meteor shower with Wrylie but apparently we missed it and went tromping around in two feet of snow for nothing, which was fun nevertheless. I started playing Perfect World and I bought a Wii. I decided to attempt Blog365. I bought Guitar Hero for the Wii and became addicted to Perfect World. Classes started again in mid-January and I had a pretty hefty workload.

Things really started picking up for me in February in terms of workload. Macroeconomics ended up being pretty difficult for me but Ethan helped me through it. March was much the same way and went by in a blur.

April brought in some very strange weather and storms. I discovered Pandora. I managed to get through the rest of the semester mid-May and breathed a sigh of relief when I got Bs or above in everything but Macroeconomics, which was a crap class anyway.

I ended up landing two jobs for the summer months of June and July: as a concession worker at a local pool’s concession stand and as an intern for my city’s ERP department working with database transfers. It turns out the internship wasn’t as grand as I had hoped and I mostly got stuck working with Excel spreadsheets for six hours a day. There was supposed to be the “storm of the century” in June which ended up being a dud. There were lots of storms in the summer and I heard more tornado sirens than I had in several years. I continued to level up in Perfect World.

I started school again in August with 16 hours of classes, which was a real drag. I worked a lot and even picked up a second job in September with the web team at my university’s Housing and Dining Services. (I get to work with PHP and MySQL a lot, which is a dream come true.) I ended up dropping a class because of an asshole grad student who thought he was a hot-shot teacher. October zipped right by and before I knew it I was voting for the first time in a very important election in November. Thanksgiving break was a breath of fresh air, but unfortunately I still had a lot of homework that needed to be done. Tuesday, November 25 would be one of the best moments of my life thus far because I got to go see The Smashing Pumpkins live in Kansas City at the Midland Theatre. It was amazing, there are hardly words to describe – besides maybe “Good Times” (anyone who was there that night will understand).

December was busy as all get out with final papers, projects and exams pushing right up until the very last minute. I had to get an extension for the first time on a project and everything worked out in the end. I actually ended up getting better grades that semester than I ever had in college with four Bs and an A. The A was in moral philosophy, which I was quite proud of.

Here’s to 2008 and a happy 2009.

As has become a bit of a tradition, I’m writing a “year in review” post to look back on the events of the last year. In case you don’t feel like reading this all the way through, Happy New Year!

2007 had a rocky start. 2006 had ended badly (honors physics on top of all my other honors courses had certainly made things difficult), and 2007 didn’t look like it was going to be any different. January was otherwise normal: I attended many of David’s swim meets and played with the pep band at a great number of basketball games, including a nasty three day tournament that nobody enjoyed.

In February I let McGovern (a former teacher) borrow my postcards to show his World Geography and World History students. There was also “Snowball”, our high school winter formal dance – I went with David. Craig even came which was absolutely remarkable, as anyone who knows him also knows. I also went and visited Kansas State University with my mom and really enjoyed everything. I also participated in a valentine swap with the members the Quilting Bee which was very fun. (I still have my valentine, Ashley!) Valentine’s Day didn’t turn out well, but it worked out in the end.

I went to the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in our city with Wrylie, CJ and Jhami. I hadn’t been to the parade in quite some time and so it was really great to go again, especially with such cool people. David went to Arizona with his family and so I missed him quite a lot. I also found out that the Smashing Pumpkins would be touring in North America, although I was rather disappointed later to find that they would never come within 8 hours of where I live. I also struggled with several pathetic Web sites ripping off my original brushes which I was forced to take care of.

April was crazy. I finally got a job working at our local Dairy Queen and then quit a mere 2 weeks later. I’m glad I didn’t stay there because the whole situation was a load of bullshit. I also went to the state FBLA competition for Web site development and got third place – and therefore missed out on going to nationals by just one place. I was very upset, but strangely enough I found out later that one group had dropped out and therefore I qualified to go. It was the most exciting feeling to know that I was going to nationals in Chicago for Web site development. I went to St. Louis, Missouri with the band to perform in a competition. It was a lot of fun, as always, and included: several band kids sneaking into some St. Louis high school’s prom being held in the same hotel, a great trip to Six Flags, and a shooting not even a block from our hotel (we could see the cops and a bunch of people from our window and we were alerted to it by seeing where we were on the news.)

Prom was in May and I had a great time, especially since I went with David. Unfortunately, with all of the flooding in our city, our basement also flooded and with that my room. I had to move everything I had upstairs and I didn’t have my room back for quite a long time. It was terribly hard to study for Advanced Placement and final exams while listening to people yelling and watching TV. I graduated on May 20 and attended a lot of graduation parties. It was euphoric but it was also sad – everyone from our graduating class would be heading different directions and to different places.

In late June and early July I was in Chicago for the national FBLA competition. I was super excited and I had loads of fun there with my friend, Jake. I got to see all kinds of things I’d never seen before – Chicago was so much different than Kansas. Jake and I spent a lot of time pilfering internet from the hotel (the fancy Hyatt) and a local coffee shop. I also met Ethan, who I would later meet again at Kansas State. It was amazing because now I hang out with Ethan a lot, and to think I met him in Chicago!

August brought brand new experiences: I moved into my dorm room at Kansas State. It was my first time living away from home, but it was alright because I knew a lot of people on campus, including David. I slumped into inactivity as far as blogging goes, but I was busy outside of the Internet. I got a job as the Webmaster for the Kansas State yearbook and I still had my 14 hours of college classes a week. I spent Halloween with David giving out candy to little kids who came to the door of my dorm room.

December was rather stressful. College finals were a new experience and although not terribly different from my high school ones it was still stressful to know that so much of your grade hangs on one exam. On December 10/11 a terrible ice storm crashed through Kansas and it also hit the Kansas State campus hard. Finals were canceled and the power was out all throughout Kansas, including the power in the university residence halls and my dorm room. Luckily enough my Software Design professor just decided to cancel my final for that class, which was incredibly nice. I made it through all right and I headed home that Thursday afternoon after my biology final. It was nice to be home for awhile and I was completely ready for a long break. Christmas was normal, except for the fact that my little cousin Kameron was deathly scared of his new “tickle-me-Elmo”.

We’ll see what happens in 2008. I wish everyone a happy new year!