New Musings

So it's the beginning of the New Year, and I've looked back at the goals I made at the start of 2012. I think I failed spectacularly at all of them, which kinda sucks.

But I was talking with my brother over the break, and he told me something really insightful: New Years resolutions are for chumps. Not those exact words, mind you, but that was the sentiment. Basically, if you're going to make a goal for change it should because that's what you want. Not because it just happens to be a good time of year for making goals, but because you look at your life and realize, "You know what? This needs to change, and it needs to change starting now." And that's all there is to it. Nothing half-assed or ideal. It comes time that you realize your life needs to be different, and so you commit to it because that's what you need to do.

So I'm not making any New Years resolutions.

Right now I'm living the way I need to survive school. I'm keeping some things in mind, in terms of balance and health and so forth, but right now I'm on track to make it through my last four months of school. And after that, the time will come where I find myself thinking that I want to progress as an individual, and I'll commit to it, and I'll do it. But that time isn't now. And it sure ain't going to have anything to do with what the calendar says.

And in the mean time, I have a few other bits of ideas I wanted to write down while I'm here.

One of the other things my brother told me is that when he's walking, he chooses a pace that's brisk enough to have the purpose of going somewhere and not so fast as to give the impression that he doesn't want to be where he currently is. A profound little statement, especially considering I'm a chronic fast-walker. Never really realized before what it makes me look like, or how it means I don't usually pay attention to where I am.

At the end of last semester, we were all in a crunch one evening, plowing through our work. We were all kind of chipping in and helping eachother where we could. I ended up doing voicework for one classmate's video, and giving two others ideas for advertising campaigns. Then a bunch of them decided to leave and go pick up some food, leaving me alone to guard the studio. But just before he left, my best friend in the program turned to me and said, "You're the best man I know.

I say that in all honesty." Such candid truth kinda left me not knowing what to say as he disappeared out into the halls. But it felt good.

Another friend went on a business trip, leaving his spouse and son behind. One of the nights he spent away, he Tweeted a line from a children's book I had given them when their son was born. It put a smile on my face to know that, in some obscure way, I got to have (very small) positive impact on my friend and his family.

It's starting to dawn on me that I'm not going to see most of my classmates ever again after the school year wraps up. I know that this is one of those things where you have to put effort into seeing/meeting with these people... But if it's their goal to move to the other side of the continent, the odds of that become pretty slim. Kinda sad.

Last week my friend's cat died. I was living with them when they got it, so I feel like I was kind of attached to him too. Apparently he got ill really quickly, it just came out of nowhere, and they had to put him down. That really sucks. Poor guy. He had the softest striped coat you can imagine, and whenever he tried to meow it was very high-pitched, like a squeak. He was also kinda skitterish. He was born to a feral-ish mother, so he was very anti-social when they first got him. But he turned out to be really affectionate and intelligent. Sigh. You'll be missed, lil' buddy.

Ok. Back to real life.
-Cril

David Newman - Going for a Ride

2012 Recap

So, 2012. When I look back on it, my mind is conditioned to go "Ugh, yup. Another year of school. Classes, assignments, stress, late nights, crappy meals, anxiety..." Once I had a second to take a step back and actually look at individual events... Wow. It was one heck of year. There was a lot of really good things that happened. Too many good things, dare I say. And so, along the lines of "too many", here's a recap of the last year, in handy-dandy, easy-to-digest bullet form:

• I became an uncle. Twice. In September, my sister and her husband had a baby girl. She's ridiculously cute. And thus, everyone's family ranking gets bumped up. Sisters become aunts, brothers are uncles, parents to grandparents, and grandparents to greatgrandparents. It's a pretty weird shift in perception.
  And earlier in the year, some close friends of mine gave birth to a baby boy. I even went in and checked on the pets and house while they were at the hospital. And lo and behold, once I got to meet the bright-eyed kid, I was introduced to him as "Uncle Chris". I totally didn't see that coming. That's a big deal to me to be an honourary uncle, especially for this particular boy.
• I did a crap-ton of traveling. Seriously, this is not an insignificant amount of miles traveled between all sorts of hithers and thithers.
• In the spring I went to New York with some classmates. I got to see Christina's World in the flesh, and walked the length of Central Park on my own, and strolled down Tin Pan Alley, had lunch in Little Italy, got to see the offices of GQ Magazine and R/GA and a few other firms, and did a lot of walking around.
• Drove out to Prince George with relatives to meet with my grandparents for a couple days. It was a nice, and GORGEOUS road trip, going through Banff national park and stopping at the Columbia Icefields.  
• Went to Vancouver and back with some coworkers for a business trip. We didn't do much in the way of sightseeing, but many a detour was had as we tried to get home without getting trapped behind fresh spring floods and/or landslides.
• Had my first real vacation this summer, road-tripping with my brother to Portland (where we went to a massive bookstore and an incredible air museum), drove the coast up to Seattle (where we visited Valve), and then hit up Vancouver for a day (various sight-seeing and a night market). Because that wasn't enough, I even spent a day in Saskatoon after my flight got re-routed for the night due to poor weather.
• I bought a DSLR. This is a big deal because this is the biggest purchase I'd done for myself... Probably since I bought either my car 3.5 years ago or my computer 5 years ago.
• Speaking of cars, I killed mine in an accident. On the positive side, no one was hurt. On the negative side, I did everything wrong as far as insurance is concerned, and my previously perfect driving record is tarnished (gooooodbye decent insurance rates!). I'm technically at fault, but because of security footage I got ahold of, I'm confident that it was the other driver being reckless that led to what happened. What hurts most, though, is the loss of my car. That hurts, a lot. I miss driving, and I miss my car. I sigh with every green Integra that passes by while I stand in the cold, waiting for the next bus.
• Had lots of heart problems. Or, more particular, problems in regards to the heart as a metaphor for relationships and emotional attachment. I broke a heart, I had mine broken, I went out on a limb, and a whole lot of other little (and big) things inbetween that, quite frankly, I don't care to go into detail here.
• I ran the office at work for three weeks while the bosses were on vacation. Okay, "ran the office" is a bit optimistic. I was lucky to be put in charge of a really good team of people that knew what they were doing and didn't really need me to interfere in order to keep the show going. Still, it was a pretty big responsibility, regardless of what actually transpired.
• With the release of Counter-Strike GO, there came a wee revival of FNF, a clan I used to play with. I got to participate for a few weeks before school swallowed me whole, and damn was it fine to rub elbows with all those people again. Old jokes and faces (erm, digital voices, I guess). Above all else... It was just nice to spend time with good people that knew eachother. Simple as that.
• I was given a guitar by my close friend at school, and started to learn a little bit. The two of us got melodicas, too. We've started to play/jam a bit together, and I've improved exponentially. I'm going to rank creating music with another person as one of the greater joys in life. There is no comparible feeling.
• I saw not one, but three concerts. I saw Steven Page in the campus pub, which was an incredibly intimate and touching performance. Coldplay came right at the end of the spring, which I saw with two friends from school, and was absolutely a stunning, huge, dare I say cosmic, experience. Inbetween those two while I was in New York I got to see the Blue Man Group, which was a blend of skilled music, thoughtful performance art/critique of society, and audience interaction. Each were wonderfully incredible, in their own very different ways.
• I discovered good music, and I made lots of music, too.

For every rough night of school, there are always the funny jokes, and the half-hour jam sessions, and getting to be in an environment where you can collaborate with incredibly different classmates, as you all try and push and pull eachother through an assignment. It's a really positive place to be, and an incredible thing to experience it. School is long and hard and tiring and miserable, but... I sure am glad that I'm doing it. It is fun. Sometimes more than others, sure. But it's fun.

So there you go. In a year where I did full time school, stressing over assignments, stayed late, lost sleep, and I worked two part time jobs with a helping of freelance work on the side, and I totalled a car and have ruined my driving record and am still fighting with insurance, and getting beaten over the head with emotional hardships and relationship difficulties... I can still have a good year. There's a whole lot more awesome things that I have done, and I'll be damned if I don't let that shine through the ugly stuff. So, verdict:

2012 was awesome.

Bring it on, 2013.
-Cril

Mark Ronson feat. The Daptone Horns - God Put a Smile Upon Your Face