Saturday, December 31, 2005

So This Is The New Year

...and I don't feel any different. Not to be redundant or anything.
Maybe I'll make a few resolutions this year, despite my anti-resolution policy. No harm in giving it a shot, eh?

New Year's Resolutions, 2006 Edition:

  • Do more things that make me happy
  • In the same vein, take more chances
  • In the same vein yet again, don't worry about what other people think
  • Work out more often, eat healthier, yadda yadda yadda
  • Make more time to read for pleasure
  • Get all A's without putting in much effort
  • Do everything I've been putting off with regards to my potential future career, i.e. write a ton more for the paper, apply for summer internships ASAP, et cetera
  • Don't let myself slip into easy habits
  • Try to be a little less impressionable
  • Be more diligent about keeping in touch with people who don't live 20 feet from my apartment
  • Live a little

    I made a New Year's resolution
    Knowing I would break it
    Knowing that it would not stick
    Every year it's something different
    Never makes a difference
    I'm only lying to myself.

    - "New Year's Resolution" by Val Emmich

  • Friday, December 30, 2005

    For Auld Lang Syne, M'dear

    From a poem that preceded the more well-known version of "Auld Lang Syne," this one "probably" by Sir Robert Ayton:

    Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
    And never thought upon,
    The flames of love extinguished,
    And freely past and gone?
    Is thy kind heart now grown so cold
    In that loving breast of thine,
    That thou canst never once reflect
    On old-long-syne?


    It's funny how the song everybody sings as the clock strikes midnight on its way into the New Year is about looking back. You would think that it would be about looking forward, into the future, but instead it's advising you to look back on your days of auld lang syne. And every year that's what people do-- New Year's has a tendency to make everyone nostalgic, and I wonder how much "Auld Lang Syne" has to do with that. It certainly makes me nostalgic, as is evidenced by my previous not-quite-New-Year's blog entries, in which I mostly look back upon my year. That's what people do at New Year's-- they review the past 365 days and almost always decide that those days were insufficient, and resolve to make the next 365 bigger and better. That kind of foward thinking is good, I suppose. But why look back because the calendar's about to change? This is coming from someone who's often stuck firmly in the past, who tries to never think about the future, but really. New Year's should be about the New Year, not the Old one. 2005 is so last year and 2006 is the new black.
    Of course, I'll probably say these things and then go wax sentimental about all the things that have happened over the course of the year. But it's all relative, anyway. I'm going to go into the New Year facing forward. Or at the very least, edge into it sideways. It's the least I can do.

    An Admission Of Truth

    Ahem.
    I was wrong.
    There, I said it. I was wrong. I said something was true, and as it turns out, it is very much not true.
    On Saturday, February 15th, 2003, I committed to type on this very blog my incomplete list of "things that blow, whether you like them or not." Topping the list was Modest Mouse.
    Flash-forward to the present, and here I am, having liked Modest Mouse for just over a year or so. As it turns out, they do not, in fact, blow.
    I may need to begin being more careful about what I claim will suck forever. Because I really don't like being wrong.

    Thursday, December 29, 2005

    A Process Of Regression

    All these posts about how people have or haven't changed since high school. It makes me think, and I've been thinking about this for awhile. It's weird. I see myself as a lot different than High School!Amy. Obviously a lot closer to Senior Year!Amy, but still quite different. It's been almost three years, after all. Invariably I see myself as better off now. I know I'm not so high-strung, which I value, and I am generally a lot happier I think. Just better, in that way that everyone seems to have improved since high school.
    But then I come home.
    Alpharetta has some awful effect on me and I can't put my finger on why. It manifests itself in the fact that my hair will never look cute in Alpharetta, even when it generally looks fine in Athens, but there are less physical effects as well. I just feel like I revert when I'm here. I'm bitchier to my parents, which may just be a result of being cooped up with them and only them for weeks on end, but still. To be honest, I feel a lot more socially awkward in Alpharetta than I do at home in Athens. I trip over my words more, I say stupid things, I try to be funny and fail miserably. I don't know what it is about this place that makes me revert but it's a big part of the reason I'm going to spend most of the rest of break in my apartment in Athens.
    I rarely see old friends anymore. And when I do, I'd like to think I would impress them with how much I've evolved since graduation, but then I stumble on my words and nod through awkward silences and my hair puffs up in a frizzball, and it's 11th grade all over again. What to do.

    Tuesday, December 27, 2005

    A Crisis Of The Honey Mustard Variety

    Help. Cannot stop eating Rold Gold Honey Mustard Flavored Tiny Twist pretzels (America's No. 1 Pretzel Since 1917). Please stage an intervention lest I die of too much pretzel (or alternatively, lest I use the word "pretzel" so much that it loses all meaning).

    Sunday, December 25, 2005

    May Your Days Be Merry And Bright

    Are you hanging up a stocking on your wall?
    It's the time that every Santa has a ball
    Does he ride a red-nosed reindeer?
    Does he turn up on his sleigh?
    Do the fairies keep him sober for a day?

    So here it is
    Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun
    Look to the future now, it's only just begun

    Are you waiting for the family to arrive?
    Are you sure you've got the room to spare inside?
    Does your granny always tell ya
    That the old songs are the best
    And she's up and rock 'n' rolling with the rest?

    So here it is
    Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun
    (It's Christmas!)
    Look to the future now, it's only just begun

    What will your daddy do
    When he sees your mommy kissing Santa Claus?


    Are you hanging up a stocking on your wall?
    Are you hoping that the snow will start to fall?
    Do you ride around the hillside
    In a party you have made
    When you land upon your head and you've been 'sleighed'

    So here it is
    Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun
    (It's Christmas!)
    Look to the future now, it's only just begun
    So here it is
    Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun
    (It's Christmas!)
    Look to the future now, it's only just begun.


    (And a happy Festivus, to the rest of you!)

    Friday, December 23, 2005

    New Music Friday

    Long time no see, I know. This isn't a real visit, anyway, so keep your pants on.

    I uploaded a few songs to YouSendIt for Russell and figured I shouldn't let them to go waste. So, if anybody is interested, I have the following:

    Butch Walker - A Song Without A Chorus

    Butch Walker - I Woke Up With This In My Head

    Ryan Adams - New York, New York

    The two Butch Walker tracks are just things he's posted on his MySpace, and the Ryan Adams is something I'm sure most of you have already, but Russell'd never heard any Ryan, so I figured "New York, New York" was a good starter. So just, take if you'd like, they're up for a week.

    If you're looking for content, look elsewhere, because I'm not offering much of anything. But music downloads are probably preferable to the wanderings of my mind anyday, right?

    Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas season!

    Monday, December 05, 2005

    SEC Champs, Bitches!!!

    Fans Cheering During Halftime

    I would just like to announce that we soundly kicked LSU's ass, 34-14, in Saturday night's SEC Championship, held in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Three of my friends were able to go, and the rest of us watched it from the comfort of the boys' apartment while doing schoolwork, but it was well worth it for the win. After the game was over, we heard noises coming from outside, so we went to see what it was. Our apartment complex goes in a kind of circle, and there were people out on their balconies all over the complex calling the dogs and cheering. It was great. Next stop Sugar Bowl (and how can I write such a thing without pointing out that you can't spell "SUGAR" without "UGA?") How 'bout them Dawgs, indeed.