unsympathetic.net

Here we are, the last Monday of the year; also, the last accounting of books I’ve read in 2007. I finished the last book last night, a collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman. I like Mr. Gaiman — except for the whole Beowulf movie thing — and am glad I picked up this collection awhile ago.

1. Night Pleasures — Sherrilyn Kenyon
2. The Naming — Alison Croggon
3. The Best American Poetry 2007 — Heather McHugh, Ed.
4. Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders — Neil Gaiman

This is the last book update for a long time. I’ve decided in 2008 to only update the actual booklist page, since this year taught me that I’m not good at doing things on time.

I hope to soon talk about book stats — which author I read the most (probably J.K Rowling, since I don’t think any other author made it to seven), which genre I read the most, which month had the most books read, that sort of thing.

 However, that will have to wait until the macbook comes back, which isn’t until next year.

Thank god next year is only a day away.

My macbook, she has a crack in it. A crack that turned into a gap during finals week.

So, I’m taking it into the Apple store to be fixed, but that probably means I’ll be without it for awhile. Which makes me very sad. I haven’t gone anywhere without it for the last four months.

At least I should get a lot of books read, since I won’t be able to check my feeds every five minutes.

Who am I kidding? I’ll just pull out the old PC laptop, and lament every moment that it’s not the Mac. Although, it’s a good excuse to spend a few days playing Sims 2 guilt free.

People I need to talk with sometime before winter intersession is over:

• Josh: Because seriously, the man and I have a lot of stuff to get done before the end of February, and it feels like we haven’t started on it at all. Which is mostly because I haven’t started on it, and I need his help for direction.
• Eric: Because, um, InDesign broke with Leopard, and he still hasn’t fixed it for me yet. Granted, I haven’t sent him the block prints I made, but still, I have a feeling that me and InDesign are going to get a lot closer this semester, and that only works if it’s working.
• You: Actually, this should happen before New Years, since it’s the only chance I’ve got to see him

Things I’d like to magically happen before the end of January:

• Ecto starts to manage Pages in WordPress. I’d love to work on the content of those suckers offline, since I’ve got so much to write/edit.
• A short story falls out of my fingers into Scrivener. So far, I’ve got evil squirrels trying to take over the city. However, still stuck in my fingers.
• My hair cuts itself because I’m too lazy to go to the hair salon, but I’m already two weeks overdue for a cut, and it’s beginning to look obvious.

Thank god that finals are over; I can finally read for fun again. Alturas loaned me a book over a month ago, and I finally got to read it on Friday.

1. Hogsfather — Terry Pratchett
2. Agnes Quill: An Anthology of Mystery — Dave Roman; various illustrators.

She’s right. Terry Pratchett is exactly the author I was looking for. I imagine that I’ll own (or at least have read) the entire current Discworld series before the end of 2008.
And having bought Agnes Quill something like three months ago, I was very pleased when I got to it, although I was surprised when each of the “chapters” were illustrated by different artists. However, it makes sense within the story itself.

Today, everyone’s running around campus, taking their finals.

Today, I get to sit in the BMU for five hours and sell Watershed, the lit mag I helped put together in one of my classes.

I’m not particularly thrilled with the whole five hours deal, but I’m the one with absolutely no finals today, and two to study for. I’ve got two guys from two different classes who are supposed to stop by and study with me, but we’ll see how that goes. Neither of them are much for studying.

I do have a bit of studying to do; I need to make last minute flashcards for terms I should have been studying all semester. Can I just say? Genius is a brilliant piece of software. Flashcards on the laptop, no need for someone else to quiz me.

(And yay! someone bought a mag while I was typing this up; at least I can say I sold one)

Alright, back to the grindstone. I don’t know how many people are planning on stopping by, but I know that when they do, all forms of studying will cease. And I really do need to study for tomorrow’s finals.

Because, I dunno, I’d like to pass Agriculture?

Yay! two whole books. One, of course, was for a paper I had to write. Can you guess which one?

1. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot’s Guide to the Land of Knitting — Stephanie Pearl McPhee
2. The Hound of the Baskervilles — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I heart Stephanie Pearl- McPhee. She’s one blogger who’s books I’ll always buy.

Nothing. At all. Again. Too many papers due this week to actually read something important.

Is it any surprise at all that the only book I managed to read this week is the one that was assigned for class? No? I didn’t think so.

1. Daniel Deronda — George Eliot

Freakishly long book — nearly a thousand pages — and would take me a good five minutes to summarize the plot, which is four minutes too look. Decently good though, and yet unsurprising with the end.

I know it’s been awhile, but I actually started and finished something. In a fairly timely manner, no less.

A few weeks ago, the Yarn Harlot herself posted a pattern for an Unoriginal Hat. The moment I saw it, I knew that I absolutely had to have it. It was easy to justify the purchase of more yarn, since I didn’t have any chunky weight yarn in the stash.

I, of course, chose to use the actual yarn the pattern called for — Blue Moon Fiber Art’s Leticia — and can I say, totally worth the cost? This is one of the softest yarns I have ever used, and it totally made up from the hand cramps that came from using such large needles. I love the color, too, and if I had enough money, I would buy every shade in the Raven collection. I heart black with colors.

I absolutely love this hat, and would totally knit it again.

In fact, I’m looking for any excuse now to buy more Blue Moon yarn. I can’t wait to finish the socks I have on the needles now just so that I can cast on with the Socks that Rock that I bought. I’d do it now, but I don’t have a spare set of needles floating around, since there’s socks on them.

I’m working on another hat right now — a different pattern and for someone other than me — and it’s nice to have something to do with my hands while watching ME play video games, since I can’t read because I’m continually looking up to watch her.

There are only four weeks left in the semester, which means that I have more work than I know how to handle, obviously.

My procrastination has reached an epic high — I’m now putting off things that absolutely have to be done, like paper writing, and studying for tests. Not that I know how to study for tests.

I’m hoping that the month off between semesters will help me regroup and figure out how to reorganize myself so that next semester doesn’t feel like this, where I’m barely staying above water.

I need to find new organizational skills. I’ve got Schoohouse for my class work (although I could think of some improvements which would make it even better), a portable calendar that is helpful for jotting things down in a hurry — mostly when it’s too awkward to break out the laptop to get it onto the calendar — and a large monthly whiteboard that ME and I add to on a daily basis, but that we walk by numerous times a day, and can keep track of big events at a glance.

What I need is a program that I haven’t figured out yet to organize my life outside of school. Granted, I’m not sure what my life is outside of school, but it would be nice to be able to figure it out.

iCal is a good option — especially since the introduction of the integrated to-do list with Leopard. I just need to figure out how to set up the calendars for maximum productivity. It would be nice if Schoolhouse integrated with iCal — so that when I create an assignment in Schoolhouse, it adds it to an iCal to-do list. That way I wouldn’t have to remember to keep both apps open to see what’s coming up.

I’m sure I’ll come up with even more things I think I need to stay organized. And most likely, I’ll just become the most organized procrastinator ever.

I hope there’s an award for that.

– “This Week the Trend,” MmmHmm: Relient K