Well, I've had a very interesting last year.  Thinking back to last August, I think I might have changed more than in any other year.  Or perhaps I've just become more consistent, I've "settled" more since then into more permanent ideas and behaviors.  I think I would prefer to see it that way.

Liz and Justin got married.  Wow.  Evelyn and Jeff also got married, and Todd and Courtney.  A guy I met in elementary school, almost a year younger than me, got married as well.  And the numbers just keep growing.  It's that stage of life, and it's odd.  Maybe I'll be used to it in a couple of years.

I have a ton of stuff that I could talk about, but either the task is too daunting, or I don't really feel like writing a lot now.  I suppose I wanted to verify that I'm still going to update this occasionally--as always, I'm hopeful for the new semester.

It has been two weeks.  Well, I've been pretty busy.

The Tuesday after we got back from the beach, Mom informed me that we were going to have a French student come stay with us for two and a half weeks (he just graduated from high school).  He came the next day.  So I've been around him a lot, although probably not as much as I should have.

I went to visit a college with my brother on Thursday and was saddened by the realization that he doesn't really care if they end their Tuesday/Thursday classes fifteen minutes early.  In fact, it's probably preferable for him.

I had surgery on my toe on Friday, hopefully for the last time.  Since I wasn't going to be able to work for a week anyway, and I only had three weeks left, I quit my job. 

This past Wednesday we went to a fondue restaurant.  It was pretty good, but not really my kind of food, and it was certainly too expensive.  By not my kind of food, I mean that I prefer not to eat meat by itself--it's much better in pasta or something like that.  The sauces were excellent though, and I do love sauces.

I did finish The Sun Also Rises, which I enjoyed much more than the other Hemingway books I've read.  It reminded me a lot of Fitzgerald, except without the beautiful prose.  I've decided, based on past experiences with Hemingway, that reading the book for the first time yields almost nothing, but it's much richer the second time.  So, I'm looking forward to rereading it sometime soon.

Right now I'm trudging through Beloved, which is kind of painful.  I took a break yesterday to read a fantasy book that Jordan loaned me called The Name of the Wind.  It was superb.  Not quite as epic as the Wheel of Time, but I think I could say that it easily surpassed every other fantasy book that I've read.  The style is much different from the typical fantasy, and the characters (at least the main character and his love interest) seem much more interesting and developed than in any other fantasy.  Anyway, so if you're interested in that genre and you have nine or ten hours to spare (=P), I would recommend the book highly.

This book and a visit from Jordan inspired me to try writing, so I've been working on a plan for a story idea I've had since the beginning of summer.  I've done much more work planning it than with any other story, and I'm still going strong, so I hope to be able to write a bit on it before school starts and I collapse.

I finished main routes in Clannad a few days ago, only to discover that the afterstory has not been translated yet.  Ouch. I also found a great website for learning Japanese grammar (www.guidetojapanese.org). 

Lastly, I have a dilemma about my classes.  I had planned to take American Renaissance literature, but I enjoyed The Name of the Wind so much, and I'm having so much fun writing my own story, that I wonder if I would do better off taking the fantasy literature class.

Pros:

-          Guaranteed to keep my interest and save me from the ominous literary criticism readings (shudder) and the occasionally difficult Shakespeare, as opposed to risking overburdening myself with serious literary classes.

-          I believe that I could get a better grade in Dr. Dixon’s class than in Dr. Potter’s, because my essays don’t seem to line up well with Dr. Potter’s expectations.

Cons:

-          Not all that helpful for grad school.  It might be better for me to take some random class that doesn’t require a paper so that I have a break from English.

-          Maybe not a con, but I’ve never had Dr. Dixon before (though I’ve heard he is great), and Fantasy Lit would be my third class with him in the same semester.

-          I really do like Emerson and Thoreau, and Hawthorne in moderation, and I need to read Whitman, so American Renaissance would definitely be good for me, and I might decide I want to focus more on that period in grad school.

I think it comes down to the fact that I've become considerably less certain about going to grad school, and considerably more certain that I appreciate good fantasy literature and would like to read more of it.  But I would like to hear other opinions (though I doubt that I will get any).

Apologies for the gargantuan post.

What is this world coming to?  You try to help some bug get over the fact that any kind of relationship with you will not work out, and with just that mere finger-flick he decides instead to let you help him commit seppuku (harakiri).  And thereby leaves a mess.  Sheesh.

I stayed up late last night reading Kyou's route in Clannad, so I don't have many thoughts today.  I definitely was not thinking this morning, which is proved by the fact that I considered trying to explain my panentheistic views in a xanga post.  Eek,  I can't imagine.

If you're at all interested in Anime of the romance genre, I would highly recommend "True Tears."  It had a lot of interesting elements lacking from most romantic Anime.  If you watch it, let me know how you think it should have ended (if differently than it did).  It's only 13 episodes,  but don't watch it in one day (like I do -_-).

I'll probably post once more with actual thoughts before I go to the beach on Saturday.

Kanji Recognition: 432
Kanji Writing: 106