But there's reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last.

So here I am, dear Red Mage Stalkers, out in Lewisburg, where I'm out of video games that I feel like beating (and I think the likelihood of finding some used SNES or N64 games is slim to nonexistent).  When the sister's boyfriend's parents invited Catkin, Mom, and Dad to a New Year's party, it clinched my decision to come back before the turn of the year.  So!  Here I am.  Fortunately, I have the 1500-page monstrosity that is Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady to keep me company (and which I have to read by the first day of classes).

I've grown out of being obnoxious and calling absolutely everybody that I know on holidays, because I know that people are visiting family or have made plans or what-have-you.  But, my dear girls, please know that I wish all of you and your families and loved ones a very Happy New Year.  But if anybody wanted to call, that would be more than pleasant.  Like I've said, my New Year's bash involves Clarissa.  And maybe the dragon puppet will say something funny.

But, because I'm incapable of original thought, I'm going to mimic the long line of meme-ing, from nikeshizu, chiara_suzuka, otakumeep, and readingirl.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
This will be a surprisingly long list, in no particular order.  Okiedabie!
Graduated from college, spent a summer at my parents’ house without employment, read a few hundred books (not kidding—I was reading ten a week in the summer, so…), sold knives, attended corporate tool training seminars, had a swordfight with Chuck Joe Hank on the back roof of our parents’ house, enabled and abetted the purchasing of certain shrinkwrapped goods, bet Glenndolyn twenty bucks that I could go an entire day making decisions only with a d20 (Roll:  2, “Sorry, didn’t hear you!”…easiest $20 I’ve ever won!), started graduate school, finished my first semester of grad school, experienced writer’s block, suffered from the inability to finish damn near anything I started to write, worked for a British guy, beat Super Mario World, posted my third consecutive 4.0 semester (grades were just posted yesterday evening!  Woot!), had a kosher Thanksgiving, went to Scotland, got propositioned by and from a Scottish prostitute, saw a Scottish bar fight (and even handed a guy a bottle of Glenfidditch from under the bar…don’t know which side I was helping out), wrote in a café, made some bad decisions, saw a knife fight on that walking bridge in Lewisburg between two frat boys, ran away, went on one of those dreadful date things (during which I contemplated yelling “Oh wow, look at my wrist!” and jumping through a plate glass window), one or two other things that I won’t mention, survived September, and (this is what’s happening today) spend a major holiday by myself.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s Resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Well, I resolved to get into grad school, so…I guess that counts.  And…no, probably nothing for next year.  Resolutions generally tend to spoil things.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My cousin Heather, who used to babysit the brothers and me, had a second child.  Also, my cousin Kristen, whose wedding I went to last summer, is apparently pregnant.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Question number one already won the long list award.  For further details, see September.

5. What countries did you visit?
SCOTLAND!

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Nothing really comes to mind, because really, I’ve had great in friends in aught eight, and what else could I really want?  So, what I’d like to have in aught nine—my friends.  And boy, will January start that off on the right foot!

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
15 December, the day my flight left for Edinburgh.
I can’t really even seem to remember other dates.  What was graduation, like 11 May or something?  I really should remember the day SU evicted me….

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Writing two novellas.  Hundreds of pages of other things resulting in nothing, but two novellas.

9. What was your biggest failure?
A tie between not being able to finish a lot of the prose I started and not finding a way to get out of my parents’ house for the summer.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
That’s one of the things that, as per Q. #1, I’m not mentioning.

11. What was the best thing someone bought you?
I got this Boyd’s penguin back in April.  It was very unexpected and surprised me quite a bit.  Now, Sparky (obviously, all penguins must be named Sparky) sits on the nightstand beside my bed.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Hillary Clinton.  Although she and Obama fought for a long, hard time, I thought that she was incredibly poised following her concession of the nomination and during the general election period.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
The Grand Old Man of Fiction.  Everyone’s projects this year got ridiculous.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Books.  As if I spend money on other things.  Ha.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog, graduation, the end of Twenty-aught-eight.

16. What song[s] will always remind you of 2008?
“Viva la Vida,” Coldplay
“The Call,” Regina Spektor
“Up All Night (Frankie Goes to Hollywood),” Counting Crows
“A Long December,” Counting Crows
“Rain King,” Counting Crows
“I’ve Loved These Days,” Billy Joel

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Not much of an answer, but I’m a little more tired and a little less optimistic.
b) fatter or skinnier? Definitely thinner.  Not going to say how much so, though….
c) richer or poorer? Surprisingly, richer.  But God knows I don’t want my money, and sometimes people even give it back to me.  Don’t know what to do about that.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I actually wish I had continued something I started during the summer—spending more time just playing my trumpet.  But grad school got in the way of that.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Scotch.

20. How do you plan to spend Christmas?
I spent Decemberween with the family and drove out there on Christmas morning (since—and many thanks again to chiara_suzuka for her help on this—I didn’t get back to the Garret until the evening of 24 December).  That was…surprisingly normal.  The next day, though, at my grandparents and with Psycho Aunt…listen, five- and nine-year-old children do not need iPods.  And that’s that.

21. How many one night stands?
None.  Though I did have that dreadful date-type thing….

22. What was your favorite TV program?
I obviously don’t watch enough television.  Then again, I don’t have cable.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Not really.  I’m an equal opportunity offender.

24. What was the best book you read?
Hang tight, kids.  This is a runner-up for the long list award….
Indignation, by Philip Roth
The Sea, by John Banville
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
The Final Solution, by Michael Chabon
The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene
Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
Quarantine, by Jim Crace
Possession, by A.S. Byatt
Amsterdam, by Ian McEwan
[and I re-read, so does it count to put this here?] Atonement, by Ian McEwan
I could also make a massive list of all the books that failed to impress me.  That would be longer yet.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
They Might Be Giants.  They’re the only group I really discovered on my own, since Counting Crows, Coldplay (still can’t believe that I rescinded that vow…), The Killers, The Decemberists were all given to me, so while they’re new to me—I didn’t really discover them, per se.

26. What did you want and get?
Hmmm…some money for books, and The Dark Knight.

27. What did you want and not get?
A new pair of Doc Martens boots, to replace my 3.5-year-old pair.  But I was incredibly surprised that nobody got me Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
The Dark Knight.  Hope that doesn’t surprise anybody.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
It wasn’t on my birthday, but there was a joint b-day bash with valindamar at Applebee’s, and that was a quality time.  I turned…22, I think?  I’m not doing the math right now.  I don't know how old I am.  I told people I died in the 1790s just to get them off my case.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
No comment.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Christ, do I own anything aside from blue button-down shirts?!?

32. What kept you sane?
I’m pretty sure that I didn’t stay sane.  After all, I had a dream that I got a phone call from Cthulu (the call of Cthulu, haha) and then had dinner with Cthulu in a dinner jacket.  Watching that guy try to eat with all of those tentacles coming out of his face was kinda gross.  And as anyone who knows the work of H.P. Lovecraft knows, the mere sight of Cthulu is enough to drive somebody irreparably insane.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Harrison Ford and Christian Bale.  And on top of being Batman, Christian Bale can sing and dance.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
The economy, the stupid bailout crap, closed-mindedness (echoing chiara_suzuka and nikeshizu on a particular issue), and the election.  Obama’s not a socialist!  I am, he’s not!

35. Who do you miss?
My girls.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Definitely Awesome Fiction Lady.

38. What was the best thing you ate?
Cracachan—it’s a traditional Scottish dessert with raspberries soaked in a Scotch whisky syrup served on a bed of oats with cream, chocolate, and shortbread.  And it’s not cooked.  So standing up afterwards is a load of fun.

Wait?  What happened to Q. 37?
I don't know.  You're the meme.  You tell us.

39. Tell us a/some valuable life lesson[s] you learned in 2008?
Don’t run away from/turn away from your friends, because nobody can do everything on their own.  That’s something I’ve just recently started to learn.

Also, just be yourself.  It’s impossible to be every thing that everyone else wants you to be.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
“Famous Last Words,” by Billy Joel
Sitting here in Avalon, looking at the pouring rain
Summertime has come and gone and everybody's home again
Closing down for the season, I found the last of the souvenirs
I can still taste the wedding cake and it's sweet after all these years

These are the last words I have to say
That's why this took so long to write
There will be other words some other day
But that's the story of my life

There's comfort in my coffee cup and apples in the early fall
They're pulling all the moorings up and gathering at the Legion Hall
They swept away all the streamers after the Labor Day parade
Nothing left for a dream now, only one final serenade

And these are the last words I have to say
Before another age goes by
With all those other songs I'll have to play
But that's the story of my life

And it's so clear standing here where I am
Ain't that what justice is for?
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn anymore

Stack the chairs on the table tops
Hang the sheets on the chandeliers
It slows down but it never stops
Ain't it sweet after all these years

And these are the last words I have to say
It's always hard to say goodbye
But now it's time to put this book away
Ain't that the story of my life