November 2004 Archives

I still maintain, that of all the necessary traits one can have, self control is one of the most important traits we can have. Sadly, it is certainly one of the traits that I have yet to master. Good self discipline is crucial to achieve any kind of success in life. Unfortunately, I am still awake and typing this and my French essay because I do not know how to focus my intelligence on one pursuit. This savoir-faire still eludes me. God help me if I can't figure this out better than I have currently.

Of course, I am a big fan of Steven Covey's flagship book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I went over that book and learned a lot from it. He suggests that we focus our energies on what he refers to as Quadrant 2 -- that being important, non-urgent tasks. To say this and to understand the value of this is common sense. That facility does not carry over into its implementation sadly. I still far too much time in Quadrant 4, non-urgent and non-important pursuits despite my efforts (feeble and increasingly futile) to do otherwise.

Priez que je passe plus de temps avec les choses importants, s'il vous plait.

The way I see it, this weekend, the last in November, heralds the end of the fall semester. This week I will be busily engaged with my end of term activities. I have much to complete and study before I can leave Edmonton for the year. I need now, more than ever, absolute focus and dedication to completing the task that lays ahead. Even more so, I see the opportunity to redeem flagging grades, and achieve what I had always hoped for last year -- namely, a solid 3.0 average. Granted, that isn't all that impressive, but I view it as a strong start.

I didn't accomplish a whole lot this weekend, but I got a few things done. I am thankful to say that I finally squeezed in time for a haircut, and I picked up a few groceries. I at least now have milk in my room, which is now actually quite clean.

More tomorrow, but I shall leave with this picture from Gloucester.

While most Fridays around here are entirely non-eventful, I actually believe I accomplished a few things today. While I believe that my room is still a disaster, I did manage to get that long needed haircut, go out to the Plant for dinner, and listen to a little of Bing Crosby's Christmas stuff. I also managed to perform with at least a little success my French presentation and the subsequent class discussion. Since I went to Boston last weekend, I now have much to complete for classes on Monday. I think I may wind upin the library all day tomorrow.

It would seem that Christmas traditions are falling by the wayside as I grow older. As the extended families grow and evolve, individuals increasingly go their own way as the ole methods no longer suit. I find it a bit disappointing, but accept it as the way the world is. But if the world has to change, I don't see why it can't change a bit in my favor. For instance, I wouldn't mind seeing us have Christmas in the Bahamas. There's nothing wrong with replacing the evergreen with a palm. Plus, there's the added bonus of seeing Christmas bikinis... Or we could add rum to the eggnog; there's nothing like spicing up the holidays.

The comment system on here is unfortunately going to have to change a little bit. I havge been getting comment spammed like crazy lately, so I will now have to approve each first post. After that, posts you make will show up immediately. This is the only way I can keep spammers at bay. I encourage everyone to get a TypeKey ID for posting. It will make things a bit easier for me to manage.

My sleeping has been a bit out of wack lately, as I feel tired all the time, so I think I am going to hit the sack a bit earlier than normal tonight...

I can't say how awesome it has been to fly to Boston, Mass. for a weekend in New England. There is nothing like leaving the absolutely landlocked Edmonton, Alberta to go to a place like Gloucester, the oldest seaport in North America. As I learned today, it was founded in 1623. It aslo has a fantastic collectin of little shops winding up a one-way street. The weather was far from idyllic, but we managed to make the best of it.

MY flight into Boston went quite well, though I was delayed above Minneapolis for a while due to heavy cloud cover and low visibility on the ground. Otherwise, I relaxed for most of the flight, content to chat with neighbors and thumb through a tattered Sky Mall catalogue. It was hard to throttle back the euphoria.

I spent the last few days at a house in Lancaster, MA where I am currently typing this out on my Mom's notebook. Everybody else has hit the sack, as they are planning on leaving at 6:30 AM. It is 13 some odd hours back to Michigan from here. I guess I can understand the desire to get an early start, though I am reluctant to see the end of the weekend come up so fast. From here on out, I have a heavy amount of studying to do. I don't think I can afford to leave the library.

I am hoping to see a bit more in the morning, as my flight doesn't take place until 6 in the evening. My hosts have been fantastic, and I have appreciated their efforts, though they cleaned me out in poker tonight. I had best get to bed before I have to wake up in the morning completely exhausted.

"Oh, I am fortune's fool!"

--From Romeo and Juliet (III, i, 141)

It's extremely difficult to shake that feeling at times. Sometimes I want to shake my fists at God when I have one of those days where everything goes wrong. Romeo utters that famous line after realizing that he's just killed Tybalt after the Prince had outlawed any more fighting between the Montague's and Capulet's. That instantaneous moment of realization, followed by the above utterance, must be a universal feeling. Homer, of Simpsons fame, put it in a less eloquent way, "D'oh!"

I experienced a rather acute attack of this feeling when I lost the keys to my U-Lock, and actually, when my hard drive died with all of my flash drives. Luckily, the drive was warrantied, and somebody turned the keys into main Lister today. Sometimes when your world is falling apart, it is hard to see that you are only shaking a bit, not falling off a mountain. It is hard to see the whole picture when you're in the midst of it.

I pretty much wasted most of my four day weekend. I had a good time, but I didn't accomplish very much of my agenda. I finished a few things, which is better than nothing, I suppose, but I am not all that impressed with myself. I have a French test tomorrow morning that I really hope I am ready for. Likewise, I have quite a few projects due at the end of the week, so I suppose if I can give up the computer for a while, I can actually get my paper typed and my French project finished.

Still hoping my ticket voucher gets to Minneapolis in Canada Post's stated time. If it doesn't, no Boston for me.

I took off on Friday for Granum to spend the weekend. It went well, and I got to see everybody that I had wanted to see. I traveled down in a 2-door 1990 Pontiac Sunfire, but it had a terrific audio deck, and the company was great as well. Coming back was kinda sketchy as there was a lot of fog and ice, but we made it back alright. While down there, I basically visited all of my relatives for a bit and went to church, along with a fair bit of studying. I have a lot of work to do, even though midterms are over with.

I went to bed last night thinking that my throat was awfully sore, and when I woke up, the irritant had metastasized into a full blown cold. I was all congested, and I generally felt terrible. I picked up a box of Sudafed, came back to my dorm, and crashed. I feel slightly better now, but I am hoping to go to bed in the next half hour or so to see what a lot of sleep can do to the illness. We'll see, more tomorrow.

Thankfully, I have finally finished midterm week on the first day of a brand new month. This does not mean that my work is over, though I acted like it today, it just means a shifting in work, gearing towards finals. The classes now have partly changed focus, most dramatically in anatomy and semiotics. I have my work cut out for me if I wish to even hope for better grades than last year. I am planning on doing a significant number of math problems per night to work on my speed.

I am watching the election tomorrow with baited breath. I have been disenfranchised in the Michigan; they didn't send me my absentee ballot in time, but I am still watching the outcome. This one is a nailbiter, but I am hoping GWB prevails. That wouldn't make a lot of people around here very happy, but I can't stomache Kerry. I don't agree with everything the incumbent has done, but I think he is still better than the challenger.