A comment! Woooot!

Somebody lovely left me a comment! Wheee, 1st one, evar! People other than my mom read this! Thanks!

Ooh, and I like this writing on the edge, nonstandard screenplay/freeform prose thing she has going on at Blonder Than You. I'm going to have to add her to my blogroll.

That brings up an aside, actually. Notice how I don't have a blogroll. (I'm also using the standard blogger template, but that's a whole 'nother story.) I read blogs from the back forward. I find the oldest post available and I start there and read forward. I have never finished a blog, ie gotten up to what's happening now, this way. Links make it hard.

Take an example: I started reading Amalah a while ago. (I love the way Amalah writes.) Then, I found an Amalah archive that linked to Halushki, and uncharacteristically, I read that day's current post...and I loved it and laughed with it so much that I started reading Halushki back to front. We'll see if I manage to get back to present day. One reason I love blogs though is that they're like stories that unfold and then theoretically one day you get to the part that's happening now. (When will then be now? Soon!) And it's all true!

Oh, and Amalah, I still have you bookmarked! One of these days maybe I'll even catch up to present day. :P

:D

So, now that I'm all excited and energized and whatnot, plans for the coming semester and this still somewhat new year: I've been thinking about focusing more on work in the work/school balance. I have a project to finish this week, which is going along okay so far. I'm telling myself to stay focused, focus like a lens. Thankfully, this time I gave myself a deadline when I set up the project, so it's not as easy to lose focus.

I want to go to Blogher in July. It sounds like great fun and a chance to network and talk to all sorts of cool and interesting people, which I really like to do. Plus, student tickets are extremely cheap. Extremely. I'm just waiting for my cash flow to reverse so I can register. Hopefully, they won't sell out in the couple of weeks that will take.

I want to do at least one large scale skate race this year. The logical choice would be the Chicagoland Inline Marathon because it is the same weekend and general location as Blogher, but my heart is set on Athens to Atlanta. I've wanted to do A2A since I found out about it, about 8 years ago. It's about time.

I'm thinking about taking the next school year off and working. It might give me a different outlook. Then again, it might just be fun. I don't know if I want to do what I do forever, but right now, I.T. is fun for me, especially if I could find something that wasn't all phone support.

I'd live somewhere else too, I think, somewhere with good skating. It would be like a sabbatical of sorts. The more I think about it, the better it sounds.

Last but not least, and completely unrelated to anything else: I'm reading again, mostly nonfiction, introspective stuff to help me get myself going and broaden my perspective as relates to this universe we all live in. I had missed reading books other than my textbooks. Calculus doesn't make for great pleasure reading, even if integration by substitution is undeniably sexy.

Toodles with a side of peace, WBL