So I decided to do a sort of yearly roundup, given that the glorious year that is 2007 is about to come to a close. I think this is more for me than anyone else, but oh well.
January:
I had 8 lj entries in January - quite a bit, actually - but I think winter has always coincided with introspection for me. I've finally managed to feel more or less at home in college (and stopped wanting to come over to the high school more and more). January 18th was a weird entry. I vaguely remember writing it (I think). If anything it seems like I was getting stressed out over classes - the entry's more a stream of consciousness than anything else. The 19th has lyrics to a Russian song which I listen to quite a bit when I'm down, which seems a fair continuation of the day before. January 23rd confirms it! I was having a shitty time, and felt things were falling apart a little bit. I still remember how I used to oversleep things, before I managed to get up earlier, and before I figured out how to lay in bed without accidentally falling asleep (not that it's foolproof. I've slept past a few things still). It seems like I've been listening to 30 seconds to mars at this point - I think it was because everything else had gotten old. A couple more frivolous posts, and January closes with an entry about my letter to me from Senior Writing. It's ironic - I remember writing to myself to not get too stressed out, so it seems like the letter came at the right time ... but I don't think I really heeded that. More than anything, I think the letter made me realize how I'd fallen short on various things - such as going to Berkeley, CCNA (which I really don't care about now, and didn't care about that much then), and some of the character flaws I've had forever (such as being passive, for example. I don't think I talked to a single classmate of mine in January).
February:
A month into the new year! The very first entry there is just me pouring out frustration. I remember the feeling, but I've by now forgotten the method completely. Oh well, I think I did end up figuring it out at the time though. The second one is fairly representative of winter. I end up brooding a lot, and as a result, sometimes I will come up with fairly eloquent ways of saying the same things I've been saying over and over again. I do remember I felt fairly .. pleased, I guess, that Will actually commented on my entry. I enjoyed his writing style, and I rarely would say something that he responded to. It makes sense, I guess, that I would need affirmation from outside sources during winter.
Oooh - February 18th. I think that entry was related to Lau's birthday party (I think ... looking back at it, I'm not sure, since she commented on it). I don't really remember what else that post could've been about, but I definitely felt all sorts of mixed up after the birthday party, which would explain both posts on the same day and of somewhat ... out of the ordinary feel about them.
Basically, what happened is I came to the party, got really wasted fairly quickly and (apparently) was less than pleasant to talk to. This sucked on several levels - for one, I'm not really mean, nor do I try to act genuinely mean. The most I'll do is sarcasm, or teasing people, but I like to think it's good natured. Therefore, I was a little surprised to find out that I'm not as ... nice as I thought I was. Second - I felt fairly awkward about the whole incident, and I've pretty much been haunted by this to this day - I'll get flashbacks to it every so often. (This actually happens with pretty much any more or less major negative event in my life). Third, for a while after this, I didn't really seek alcohol out as much as I did before. All in all, I think this may have began my somewhat ideological reformation - I've began to be less and less bitter that my life isn't a string of drunken nights, and began to feel that maybe it is ok to live how I've been living (I've realized this a while back, but there was a disconnect between the mind and the heart, which really sucked). The last two posts of February are in the same week, and I think they're simply a result of me trying to cope with the events of said party and its effects on my cognitive image of myself. For some reason, it really shocked some part of me, and threw for an emotional rollercoaster.
March:
Ah, yes - March. The first post is mundane - an example of how I tend to nitpick on the tiniest of things, and balloon their importance to inappropriate measures. The second post .. was an example of my assembly class and how much it frustrated me. Third entry was in the very same week - on Women's day, too. I'm not sure if that has any bearing on the entry itself .. Judging by the time of it, it seems like me and my mom had probably gotten into some sort of existential conflict again, where she decided to try and argue with me that my way of living is wrong, and hers is right. It happens every so often now, and really tends to throw me out of wack. Last entry of the week - 300 and football. I definitely remember 300 giving me a positive attitude boost, and football always does, so it seems like that week ended on a fairly high note.
The next post pretty much highlights the impending sense of doom I had about my academic classes, but how I just couldn't bring myself to care enough to actually get results. Actually, I cared enough - I just wasn't horribly distraught over the prospect of getting bad grades. The post on the 15th is typical .. I suppose the only outstanding thing in it is my witty comment in response to Anna. I'm actually somewhat proud of that. March 22nd - I actually remember what this entry is about, despite it being so cryptic. This was related to a comment someone had made about how their classes are going by very easily, and it seems like the less amount they put into the class, the better a result they get. Since I was actually struggling with classes at the time, it annoyed me quite a bit (since I tend to consider myself .. fairly smart. It's one of the qualities that I think defines me.), and therefore the entry. It's funny, because in a way this contradicts my earlier post about not caring about my academics - apparently I cared enough to write an entry about it, and I remember actually being down the rest of the night. March 24th, 3:36 am (I'm not sure if the time on this is right. It seems about right, though) - I had finished watching Green Street Hooligans for the first time. Having been enamoured by football since forever, this movie is one of my favorites. Elijah comes from the US and his life basically becomes football (the other parts of the movie aren't really that important). It made me feel really happy inside, and this is probably when I realized not only that I may be happier in Europe, but that I may actually be able to move to Europe once I graduate. Before, I'd always thought of the US as a transitional state, but I haven't really thought of anything after it. Now, I have planted the seeds of moving away (seeds which have germinated into me possibly seeing Euro 2008 in Austria / Switzerland this summer). The last post of March is of me getting hired for CLM. I remember being very anxious about it, and I think I made a pretty big deal about working in a mostly Macintosh lab .. but everything worked out well.
Now that March is over, it seems like time to do a winter quarter recap - of all the things I didn't really blog about, and the kinda overall picture.
Winter quarter is a serious candidate for the worst quarter of my life - so far, it definitely has the lowest GPA. This was the first quarter I took a Statistics class, the beginning of a year-long trial with it, and more bickering with my mom about how a Statistics degree is useful, but nevertheless horribly boring. I attended probably 10 lectures of Sta 32 at most (including the midterm and the final), after realizing I could not pay attention in class and that the material was for the most part very basic. I got a B+ in the class overall, and began resenting statistics for simply wasting my time. Another class I had during winter quarter was Differential Equations, 3 times a week at 8 in the morning. I was half-asleep for the class, mostly playing my PSP (the first quarter I have had my PSP, actually). Despite moments of trouble though, I got through the class pretty well, getting an A. My other math class was Mat 125A - Real Analysis. This class was right after Diff Eqs, and it was in this class that I would actually fall asleep. The material was a bit challenging, but I thought I had the grasp of it. I came out with a B- and have not yet taken 125B, so the consequences of my performance in the class are yet to come. After this class came Philosophy - a fairly easy class with fairly easy tests. The material was fairly easy, so I would play Tekken through the whole class. The only dark spot was the essays - that combined with my surprisingly mediocre performance on the final gave me a B- in the class(or was it a B? I'm not too sure). Having taken this as an 'easy GE class', I was a little disappointed. The final, fifth class, was Assembly language. Having to learn assembly struck me as unnecessary. The teacher read off powerpoints that he had put up on his websites. I submitted his solutions from previous quarters for some of the identical programming assignments and had gotten 80% on them (not for plagiarism. His solutions weren't actually fully correct). I also didn't do well on another assignment, for not having read the prompt carefully enough. This class struck me as the epitome of a programming class where the main difficulty wasn't the logic, but rather turning that logic into working code, which ended up being cumbersome and nearly impossible to debug.
I skipped my assembly class a lot to hang out with friends I had met last quarter - on more than one occasion I would go over there and drink wine that they had secretly stashed away in their dorm room, or just hang out. I got a sense of belonging to a large community, something I felt I had missed out on by not living in the dorms. My mom knew nothing of this, of course, so after a while all of these secret excursions had weighed on me, making winter quarter difficult, academically and emotionally (also since my academics tended to control my emotional well-being). We now move on to Spring quarter.
April:
The very first post is on the 9th, and is a recap sort of post. Usually, when I don't post, it means that I have gotten into a fairly steady rhythm, one that doesn't conflict with anything. This is pretty much confirmed - I like work, I'm not very social (to be expected, really), etc. Having a calmer quarter, I think around this time I began thinking about the big milestone in my life - my 18th birthday (which was coming in a few months). Nothing too serious, though. The next entry marks Kurt Vonnegut's death (which made me very sad), and the next one is from xkcd. Worthwhile entries, sure, but no real substance behind them. April 17th - perhaps a predecessor to this entry? I went back through most (or maybe it was all) of my livejournal, and began reminiscing about everything that I could have done better. I think it wasn't a depressing kind of regret though - it was a 'maybe things could've been even better than they are now?'. I'm always glad when looking back still allows me to look at the present and not feel down. The entry after this is written 8 minutes after midnight on the 18th ... it's pretty much a continuation. The entry on the 29th is of a phrase I'd picked out from ... I think it was Hot Fuzz, but I've heard it since then in several movies. I liked it, especially considering how I would eventually like to be in Europe - and so it became my default away message on AIM for a while. Last post of April is just an interesting link of a programming language - if anything, I guess it shows that I had free time and was in good spirits.
May:
Only one entry - I think by this time I'd realized how work has gotten me kinda caught up, and I didn't have that much time to muse about things. May 9th is a pretty big holiday, and made me miss Russia (a lot of things make me miss Russia). I remember thinking up the 'boolean existence of nature' while biking home from somewhere, but I can't remember what it was about. I have a feeling I was going to complain again about all of my character flaws, and how I can't correct them, and write a lot of self-introspective stuff that really wouldn't have much substance behind it. I suppose laziness and a want to not fill my lj friends' page with repetitive rubbish then caused such a short post. I think May was a good month - busy, but not too busy, fairly normal.
June:
June is always a weird month - a sentiment I echo in my first lj post. I don't remember when I had finally passed my dojo exam for shodan, but I do realize that it caused me to look back (just as birthdays and new years do) on things, the things I had accomplished. Most of the post is just me wanting to get things out of my system, and nostalgic for the happiness that June used to be (children's day and my birthday. how lucky I was). Halfway through the post though - I start talking about addiction. At the time, I was talking about cigarettes - I was at a point where I felt that perhaps I should quit, and I felt less and less apathetic about all of the anti-smoking campaign. In a sense, part of me realized smoking was wrong, but another part of me (and several of my friends) hadn't. I was very worried to be addicted, and right around this time began to get a little paranoid about my health (not paranoid enough to go to a doctor and get check ups, though. just paranoid enough to think I have cancer). Ian also offered to smoke me out - I don't remember how much pot I smoked at the time, but I don't think it was a lot .. At the time, I don't think a habit of smoking marijuana was really something I was worried about. Anyway, after I wrote the entry, it seems like I cried, judging from my next post. Crying had always been cathartic for me, and I'm fairly sure that I just fell asleep shortly after.
I didn't have an entry on my birthday (and I also took my birthday out of facebook), because I decided to simply treat it very low-key. Last entry of June (midway through it, no less) was about dreams - I had a pretty vivid and pleasant one. I'm not sure if this is related too much to my actual emotional well-being, but I think they have occurred more this year than before.
Spring quarter roundup - having to get out of the pit I had dug for myself with my winter quarter grades, I have to say I did fairly well. I took Data Structures with Sean Davis - a very interesting class that I enjoyed an immense amount, and got an A ( A-? ) in. I also had another stats class (boring again, but I got an A in it this time), a Newtonian physics class that wasn't too interesting(got a B+), and linear programming, which was very interesting as well, and I got an A in that. Champions League knockout games happened during this time, and I missed a few physics quizzes to watch the games (part of the reason why I got a B+). I had worked a whole quarter in CLM, enjoyed it quite a bit, and made friends with most of the people in my lab group. Spring was overall a fairly positive time in my life.
July:
July has only two posts, but they're actually substantial. The first one marks my attempt to live a healthier life - I tried to take up running, and to quit smoking. I had also began to play football regularly, which made me very pleased. Also, I noted in the first part that the climax of my maturity is the ability to discard the opinions of others - fairly true, as I used to be very needy of approval of others. As life goes on, I seem to need that less and less, and it really satisfies me that some qualities of my character are improving.
The other July post is a general 'lack of direction' post - that I should visit England or Russia, that I should figure out what I'm doing after college, and that I hope to be in Europe in 5 years. These are things I think about every so often, but I guess I was close enough to lj to actually blog it this time.
August:
First post is about football (Celtic - Spartak was an excellent pair of matches, by the way), about another girl-crush, and about how I got dean's list despite not having tried that hard during Spring quarter. (I exerted an effort, sure, but I think I put about as much into the classes as was expected, not much more). August 6th - around this time I joined an INTP forum to keep from being bored at work, and did a bunch of quizzes to determine my personality style. Fun fact - I found INTP by looking at the interests of another Stas who went to UC Davis, who has since then started working for CLM, who since then I have met and hung out with numerous times, who I had found because he was a friend of a friend of my girl-crush at the time. I was on the forums for most of August and September, but then I stopped, since I'm not much of a contributor to forums (as is evidenced by my nearly empty lj). The next entry's pretty blah, but the one after that marks my increasing tendency to get stoned. Also, written in Ian's style for several reasons - one, he was there at the time, two, I actually admire a lot of the stuff he writes, so I think it was a 'flattery through imitation' thing. Next entry is kinda random too - I looked myself up on the UCD people search, and realised that I'm apparently a junior. It was kinda neat. Last August post is about the Celtic - Spartak games - Spartak lost on added-time penalties, in an away game that many Celtic fans have called the best to have come to Parkhead. I was very sad (also, I think I missed a physics lab to watch this).
Summer session recap - I kept myself mostly busy with work and summer session, found a girl crush. Also, end of summer session I got a new job with my same employer - something I was pretty excited about. Summer was pleasant for me - it was a nice mix of having stuff to do and having free time.
September:
empty!
October:
First entry in October is about cigarettes ... again. Girl crush had seen me smoking, which made me feel fairly self conscious (since, as far as I knew, she was pretty anti-smoking). Then I realized that perhaps it's not a good thing to have a habit which I feel I need to hide from people, and therefore quit from that day on. (I lasted for a little over 3 weeks, I think - on the plus side, I didn't have any cravings. On the down side, it's lame to have friends who smoke when you try to quit). Random meme on the 9th, plus a post noting Russia's home win against England in the Euro 2008 qualifiers.
And that's it for my entries. Fall quarter was pretty sparse on entries, since I've been mostly tied up with work and school - and somehow I had enough of a social life that I would actually get called to do stuff every so often. As far as a recap, I think it went fairly well, I'm really satisfied with my grades, and I thought the classes were fairly interesting and not extremely challenging.
As far as looking back on the year as a whole, I'd have to say I'm pleased with the results. Comparing myself with me of January, I'm more emotionally stable now, I've got a fairly good academic record, I've got a stable job that I enjoy, and that also pays well. I've significantly reduced my tobacco intake (small steps, I guess), and have played a lot more football this year than before. I finally got my dojo shodan (and planning to test for my federation one in February), and I tried judo. I also think this is probably the longest post I've ever written in the history of my lj (and it only took me two sittings! I'm amazed.)
Anyway, I have too much free time during break and not much with which to entertain myself. I've also grown a little tired of social gatherings, so I'm at a bit of an impasse. I've tried getting rid of the XP on my machine (with success), and tried getting Ubuntu to dual boot with Vista (not so much success). Looking forward to winter quarter classes, for they actually look interesting.