Revisiting a Rather Nice Year

Here we are again in the last few hours of a rapidly waning year, waiting patiently for the arrival of 2008. It's a time of reflection for many, and so, in keeping with what appears to be becoming this blog's tradition, it's time for me to reflect.

January opened with a second consecutive Photoshop doodle just before I went off to begin my second semester at college. As usually happens around the fourth day of a new year, I had a birthday, this one rendering me nineteen. Once the celebrations died down, I was re-assimilated into life in the city as well as classes, including a rather challenging honors chemistry lab.

February, or Feb'y as I called it for much of the month, was really, really cold and snowy, but it passed by without much incident. I'd been afraid of what 02/07/07 had in store for me, but it really ended up being a rather normal Wednesday. I officially declared my major, had a bunch of exams, and was just plain swamped. But it all turned out well.

The madness of March came upon me, and I ended up travelling quite a bit, to Hartford, New York City, and Buffalo with the pep band. In favor of my academic pursuits (which, after all, is why I was at school), I opted not to go to San Jose, though, so I still haven't experienced the West Coast. Oh, well; I'm sure I'll have more opportunities to travel in the future.

April was peppered with concerts as I came down the home stretch, and then tragedy struck another college campus, while our own was slightly jarred as well. I finished my group service project with DRS, and my first college year went out with a bang.

May and June were fun, even though I wasn't able to end up with a job for the summer. I had a few projects of my own to keep me busy. One of them, which came to fruition in July, was to arrange four-part harmonies for the Canadian and American national anthems. The ultra-hyped 07/07/07 came at the beginning of my first "stint" as a camp counselor, but other than that, nothing really radical happened.

August brought the end of life to four of my teeth, but I'm sure they're okay with that. Then, after over three months at home, I got itching to get going again back at school. I also escaped the curse of Friday the Seventeenth while I was at band camp in Bradford, so I don't have to worry again until October 2008.

September and October were the bulk of the first semester in my major. Some classes were much easier than expected, some were much harder. In November, after a busy band season, I was inducted into one of the band fraternities, and that has turned out to be a very rewarding experience.

December started on a high note with Pitt's stunning upset victory over West Virginia in football, but then finals came around, and that wasn't so stunning (and I swear, I'll post more about that at some point). The holiday season snuck up on us all as usual, as well as the annual slew of colds and general malaise. I don't know; this December just felt different. But Christmas was fun, in all its iterations.

Before being caught up in the "Christmas high," I recall having thought that 2007 just needed to end. I think that was just because of recent events, though. I mean, if December wasn't great, but the rest of the year was good, then that's not all that bad, isn't it? All in all, 2007 was a rather nice year, I'd say.

Still, I'm optimistic for 2008. I'm growing up. Life is getting to be more important. Big decisions will have to be made. It's scary, but it's also exciting. I don't usually make resolutions for January, but this year I've got plenty. And if I can manage to keep just a few of the big ones, I'm sure to have a great 2008!

Happy New Year everyone!

Random tangent: You'll recall that my brother got angry that we had sparkling red grape juice to ring in 2007 rather than our traditional sparkling white (actually, you might not recall that). Well, this year, after a trip to the grocery store, Mom realized that we didn't have any non-alcoholic celebratory beverage, and proceeded to blame us for not reminding her. But then she realized, as I had done much earlier, that there was, in fact, sparkling grape juice in the refrigerator already. Of course, it's red. Oh, well; David'll live.

A Christmas Complication

©2007, Timothy J. Parenti. All rights reserved.This video is 0:43 in length.

As you can probably tell from the still shot, I had a little problem earlier today. My seven-year-old cousin Danny was a bit too excited to see me today at the family gathering and transformed into Magnet-Boy! Fortunately, I was able to get a little help from Uncle Richard.

I'm enjoying the holiday with my family (immediate and extended), and I hope everyone is having fun doing the same!

Have a Magnetic Merry Christmas!

And of course, I'll have more of the usual stuff later.

Philippe

I have really been in need for a creative outlet lately. Here it is.

I've decided to launch a francophone webcomic, Philippe! Philippe started out as the unofficial "official mascot of French class" back in high school, and after learning that my brother had chosen the name as his French pseudonym this year, I had to revive the character.

I plan to have a new installment every Tuesday I can manage, even if that only ends up being four weeks (which is how much I've drawn as of now). If I hit a dry spell, that doesn't mean I won't pick it back up at some point.

To avoid people asking, Philippe is a squiggle. His basic form was derived out of boredom at the markerboard in French class. There's really no other way to describe what he is. And yes, I realized that no arms and legs would become an issue. Oh, well.

The comic is drawn using regular markers and paper. My art's not good enough for anything fancier.

If you have any ideas for future editions of Philippe, please send me an email. If I like them, I'll get right to drawing them!

OChem Update

Just a little update... while I'm sure I didn't "ace" the OChem exam, I certainly did much better than the last two. Granted, I said that about the last one and it didn't end up meaning much, but this time I have qualitative evidence that I did better:

I was able to do 10 of the 12 "complete the reaction" problems (only 10 are graded), and I finally was able to complete a full synthesis problem on my own. That, and I only ended up leaving two problems unfinished.

I'm holding out hope for the benefit of the doubt being given in the name of improvement. And then, of course, there's the chance that I did everything wrong... but I don't think so.

One down, two to go!