Farewell to 2009

It's even harder, in a way, to farewell 2009 than it was to farewell 2008 a year ago. Perhaps this is because 2009 ends in a 9, (which has always been one of my favorite numbers) and therefore is an odd number. I have always liked odd numbers better than even numbers. My mother says that's because I'm odd myself, which might very well be true, but whatever.

It might also be, however, because 2009 was such a very full, very exciting year. It's strange that although things happen and change, I never really feel like so very much is going on in my life, until I stop and reflect a moment like I do at the end of each year and realize, wow, I have had a full year! In January I watched "Inkheart" after a wait of many years and finished my first knitting project; in February I discovered the beauties of William Morris's writing; I turned eighteen in March; April was the Spam Jam at Waikiki, a rather unique experience; May marked my excruciating staph infection; in June I discovered the wonderful world of Bollywood; in July I managed to overcome adversity and actually compete at the Irish Dance National Championships despite my earlier illness, as well as explore beautiful Nashville; August meant the start of my sophomore year of college; in September I went museum-hopping, visiting such places as Queen Emma's Palace and the first Mission in Hawaii; October saw Father Damien be canonized, which was an amazing thing to experience in Hawaii, at the cathedral where he had been ordained; in November I participated in my first ever (but certainly not last!) NaNoWriMo and managed to pound out over 30,000 words, as well as had the opportunity to chop down a section of bamboo forest with a machete; and this December, of course, has been all family, fun, and Christmas cheer.

There's definitely been a mix of both good and bad this year, but that's how it is with all years, isn't it? What's most important is that I feel I got a lot out of it, and have grown as a student, a dancer, an author, and just a person. So yes, I will raise my glass to toast 2009, and although I feel a tinge of sadness as I always do with the ending of anything, I also welcome 2010 and all the adventures it still has in store--both for me, and for you. Happy New Year, everyone!

Christmas Holiday So Far

"Let me explain. --No, there is too much. Let me sum up."
-Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride


My Christmas Holiday (Thus Far) 'Sum up':

1. Watching “(500) Days of Summer” on the plane and coveting a little boy’s jester cap
2. Eating my dad’s amazing pancakes for breakfast
3. Realizing my baby sister’s vocabulary is a million times more advanced than I had imagined it to be
4. Realizing I lost all my Mario Karts Wii skillz over the past semester
5. Baking chocolate chip cookies and then scoffing them
6. Typing, printing, and then decorating menus for my little brother’s play food café
7. Tossing frisbees at the park
8. Eating carrots and watching “Star Trek” with Lathspell at two in the morning
9. Staying up until four in the morning writing a chapter of my novel with my quill pen and inkwell
10. Singing Christmas carols at the family Christmas party
11. Running around outdoors blowing mist from our mouths and pretending to be dragons
12. Attending dance lessons again
13. Trimming the tree with plastic leis
14. Reading The Pioneers, All Things Bright and Beautiful, The Mark of the Horselord, and Eagle of the Ninth all at once without getting too confused
16. The promise of Rollercoasters and Rembrandt
17. Dancing a silly sibling dance to “Cat and Moon”
18. Finalizing the menu for the Second Annual Tolkien Birthday Feast
19. Taking a nap on the sofa with Elhendur
20. Looking forward to “It’s a Wonderful Life” and mochi on New Year’s Day!

Grades

I should be abed, but I just finished watching a celebratory episode of "Primeval" instead. I finally mustered the courage to look up my grades for the semester, and--glory of glories, I got all A's! Well, with one A+ and one A-, and then the rest were all A's! I was so relieved, I nearly cried. I was absolutely miserable in my Physics class and had thought I would be lucky to get a B . . . But I got an A-! Huzzah, huzzah, huzzah! This will be a very merry Christmas.

I'm suddenly eager for my next semester, to continue my learning. Thank goodness.

A Day in My Life, Dec. 17

I originally thought this would be a boring day to talk about. Finals week is winding down, and all I had planned for today was studying and work.

Luckily for you all, however, I am extremely bad at sticking to plans, especially when I'm the one who made 'em. So--here's my second installment of 'A Day in My Life'!

This morning I had to get up at six-thirty to go to the university with my grandmother. Some days this week I've had exams late in the day, and so have been able to sleep in and ride the bus to school, but today my Hawaiian Studies exam was scheduled for 7:30 in the morning. Luckily it was a take-home, group exam, and since my group and I work well together I'm pretty confident we got an A. I was out of there by eight-thirty.

Now, I would have liked to have just gone back to the apartment then, but I couldn't, because I was scheduled to work at my library job from 4-6. So instead, I had almost eight hours to kill. Planning to use that time by studying for my Physics final tomorrow, I walked to the school library and found a nice and quiet alcove to study in. Or, well, to sleep in. I was really tired.

Yeah, I ended up sleeping for a little over an hour, and had really strange dreams. I know that I dreamt that I was watching "The End of Time", and that it was entirely about people asleep in an enormous library, which shows you how exhausted my imagination was! 

Erm, once I woke up I realized this was no good, so I left the library and found a bench under an enormous tree. I don't know what type of tree it was, but it's really big and beautiful, with a bright green, feathery canopy that looks like lace with chips of blue sky peering through the openings. I studied there for a few hours, broke for lunch, and then studied some more. My steely resolve to study non-stop did crack at one point and I then spent over half-an-hour playing solitaire on my iPod (Terpsi) while listening to the soundtrack of "Devdas", but all-in-all it was a productive day. I didn't even watch any episodes of "Primeval", can you believe it? Although really it wasn't as hard to avoid as it might have been; the show lost a little bit of its grip on my heart after *spoiler* and *spoiler*. I still love it for the most part, but feel that some elements of the story could have been executed much better.

I also went back to the library to see if they had the actual novel version of "Devdas" (they do) and "The Witch in the Wood" by TH White (they do), and after finding the books and getting all excited about them I left them on the shelves despite the protests of my bookworm heart, because after all I'm heading home on Saturday and don't trust bringing library books with me on a trans-ocean flight. Something to look forward to in the Spring, I guess. I also found a book on the book sale rack that I thought might be interesting. It's called "The Enchanted Cup", I think, and is a retelling of the story of Tristam and Isolde. I didn't buy it though, because I had no money with me. And besides, I don't know if it's any good.

I did find a children's anthology of poetry that Sir Walter de la Mare put together, though! And I read it all, too--it was a nice break from studying and stress. De la Mare is one of my favorite poets, have you ever read his "The Listeners"? If you haven't, you must go read it now. I've got it memorized. Anyway, the poems he chose were fun to read, and he wrote notes to go with them explaining them to his young readers and encouraging children to really engross themselves in the poetry and giving tips on how to enjoy poetry (read each poem aloud slowly; savor each word; envision what the poet is describing and compare it to the reality, if you've seen the reality, etc.). It was really interesting. I particularly liked this line of his that I copied out in my journal right there in the library so that I would remember it:

"Whatever you admire you look at with all yourself in your eyes; and your love for it adds to its beauty."

Isn't that in itself a beautiful saying? He was explaining the merits of poetry, and I certainly agree with him on this. That's why it's possible to read so many poems about the same subject--the sea, for example, or a songbird, or rain--without getting sick of them, because each poet loves the subject in a different way, providing a different lens for the reader to look at the subject with and appreciate the subject through. Does that make sense? I hope it does.

And this quote was just thought-provoking:

"When I was seven I loved rhymes and jingles. When I was fourteen I thought I hated poetry, partly perhaps because I had been made to learn it for a punishment. When I was about fifteen I suddenly realized that when the poet Homer said that his great hero, Achilles, in his rage went out 'black as night' he meant black as night. It was like a flash of summer lightning over a lovely country of hills and forests."

I puzzled over this. What exactly does de la Mare mean, do you think? What is the discovery inherent in the line? I thought perhaps he meant that he suddenly understood the power of the words, that Homer could have said 'black as pitch' or 'black as coal' but instead chose 'black as night' for a purpose. That led me into an interesting musing on the meanings of words and word choices when describing things--do we really think about the words we choose, or do we just write 'black as night' without considering the implications and beauties of the word 'night'--all its airy coldness and sparkling dark--, and not stopping to think if we want to evoke the earthy coarseness of 'coal' or the shining thickness of 'pitch' instead? Perhaps I even got the entirely wrong impression from what de la Mare was saying! I'd love to hear what you think about it.

Anyway, musings aside, I did finally go to work, and did my job (which today was mostly sitting behind a desk and being bored and studying to fight the down-time). Today was only the second time that I've been the one to close up the place, but I enjoy shutting everything down, I've always liked cleaning things and putting things in order and putting things away. It's somewhat meditative. Tomorrow's my last day of work this semester, but I'll be back next semester, thank goodness, because the people I work with are awesome!

After that there's not much to tell. I returned to the apartment about six-thirty in the evening, studied some more, chatted with my family via video Skype (I love Skype!!), and stressed just a teeny bit. I also ate a couple squares of Cadbury Caramello, mmmmm!

Now I'm lying on the floor of my room, which is where I sleep, and am trying to: A) Not think about my exam tomorrow, and B) Not think about all the packing I'm going to have to do tomorrow! I'm such a procrastinator, alas.

It's really hot and humid right now, my ceiling fan's going, and I'm exhausted. I am also excited about finally going home for Christmas.

And . . . yeah, that's my day! I'll try to write up another post tomorrow, but probably will fail because I'm going to be BUSY! Merry Almost-Christmas to you all!

"It is the deep breath before the plunge."

Yep--my last weekend before finals week, and then after a whirlwind of exams I get to board the plane and return back home for Christmas! I'm about to do some studying--Russian and Physics, with a little Hawaiian History thrown in for good measure--but I thought that before I do I'd do a quick checking-in here at the old blog. 

I'm really, really tired, so I might crash during my study session, because I stayed up until two in the morning making my parents' Christmas gift. I won't say what it is just yet, but perhaps I'll post a photo of it later. And then for some reason I woke up at eight o'clock this morning. My internal clock has a sick sense of humor, I guess. Anyway, I have a headache and am not enjoying it.

I just finished watching "The Pianist", a film I've been meaning to watch for over a year and just never managed to . . . Anyway, I liked it. Very powerful. Very sad, but very powerful.

I might not post again until I'm back home, so if that is the case, I bid you all a farewell from Hawaii now. Have a merry Christmas and New Year's, everyone! I love Christmas, don't you?

An Update (Registration, etc.)

I finally registered for Spring '10 classes this morning, and was fast enough to get all my first picks. So I'm pretty pleased. I mean, I had wanted to take an English course which promised to study fairytales and adaptations thereof, but that was filled a couple days ago, and I could only register at 7:30 this morning, so what can you do. I'm pleased with the line-up, though. I'm taking three english classes, my fourth semester of Russian, a drawing class, and a nutrition class. 

Next week is final exams for me (although I'm taking a few early this week), and then--home sweet home! I'm super excited, and actually got all my Christmas shopping done over the most recent weekend. My feet are still sore :)

The weather's breezy, bright, and clear right now, not at all like the weather I associate with Christmas. It'll be fun to be home and wear a jacket again, as SoCal can get pretty cold in winter. Yes, I know, Linden, stop laughing. 

What else? Um . . . Oh, I'm planning for my second annual 'Tolkien's Birthday Feast', which should be a blast. The siblings have already requested 'Shrimp and Hotroot Soup', so I'm scrambling to find a recipe that I like. Also, I'm really interested in starting to make some simple animated short films, using stop-motion. I'd love to hand-draw the frames, but that'd take literally half of my life, so I'll probably not. But it'd be fun to make little films for my younger siblings.

That's all the news for now. Except has anyone else watched 'Born of Hope' yet? If you haven't, you should--it's actually really good, despite Gilraen being quite annoying! I mean, little Halbarad and Elladan and Elrohir are in it, come on! Also, little Aragorn is adorable, and Arathorn was really good, as were (to my surprise) the original characters. The black polka-dots of orc blood on Arathorn's forehead in battle did get distracting, though.