An addendum

At my brother's request, and by my own willingness, I will be amending the 'best of' post below and preceding this one to include Jimmy's (and Cristof's, should he wish to contribute) official 'Top ten biggest loads of bullshit of 2008'. :)

The Best and Worst of 2008

2008 is a year that will be remembered for many things - without getting caught up in cliché, I can safely say that this isn't a particularly easy post to write.

My personal top ten:

10. Driver's permit (laugh, its ok)
9. Theatre jobs pay over $1000
8. Nate thinks he can beat me in a mile race
7. Impromptu blast-beat competition at Guitar Center
6. Air purifier fills my room with ozone
5. Velvet jacket, suede sport coat, alpaca wool sweater
4. Being an editor of the paper apparently doesn't mean I can edit it
3. OVER 9000!!! songs in my music library
2. RuneScape kills my first MacBook; Apple gives me a new one for free
1. Nicole

And on a broader scale:

10. A Cross The Universe
9. Belgium gets a government
8. Worldwide BitTorrent traffic up 3%, average Christmas spending down 34%
7. Google publishes full books online, legally
6. Gays protest in San Francisco, only to have their right to marriage revoked
5. A Libertarian runs for President in America (no one cares about his age, 72)
4. Public entities with private shareholders put America and, subsequently, the world in recession
3. Darfur still without aid of world superpowers
2. Canada officially a tyrannical dictatorship
1. America elects an inexperienced black man President, proving their superficiality once and for all

That's all for now. Have a great 2009, everybody, and may it bring even more things that succeed, things that suck, and things that honestly make you wonder if they really happened.

Happy new year :)

I'm everywhere.

Since I intended to use this blog as a means of collating everything I do on the internet (and have so far failed) I'm going to draw my readers' attention to my Youtube page, where I post little videos now and then, as well as the DeviantArt page that I started recently.

Both are fun little mediums to show off work, the latter more so because nothing about my videos really showcases any filming talent I might have hidden somewhere.

And if you haven't seen Wicked, I strongly recommend it.

I like writing pithy biting comments on surveys.

Really, I do.

Recently, I took this satisfaction survey at my school, and I was finally able to anonymously express my opinions of the school - something that is hardly common and probably carries a bit less weight than delivering my concerns to school administrators in person - given the disparity between the level of force they tell us we have in terms of making arguments and the amount of force we actually have, I would rather openly keep such opinions to myself and privately post them...on my blog.

On this survey I provided several comments in the section given to personal reflections on the school's performance. That's what's written below.

-

Haverford tends to be a more conducive environment for work than any sort of sincere social interaction. The school prepares boys, through their methodology, to become very intelligent, wealthy, socially strained and out-of-touch adults.

You can't fix the tendency of members of the student community to shut themselves up inside little boxes and put up a facade as opposed to revealing their personalities. Haverford DOES NOT, in any way, foster an environment where students can feel secure expressing themselves as an individual - as the person they really are. Despite the availability of school counselors, the student body in general is NOT accepting of any manner of openness in terms of sexual orientation and emotional feelings. It is a rabidly conformist bubble, and always will be.

I mean what I say. The past 11 years of my life have been well spent, and I'm lucky to have social relationships outside of Haverford much more fulfilling than anything the school could ever engender.