Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Life: Work declines but a novel begins to form

It's been a while since I wrote here about my own life. Perhaps, it's because I think my own life just isn't that exciting. Still, things have happened and I'd like to give all of you an update. I'm out of school now, and have been on winter break for over a month now. The first bit was nice and busy with work and Christmas preparations, but as soon as that passed my schedule cleared up to an insane degree. My hours at work have dropped off to near non-existent levels, and so I've got a great amount of free time. I have, of course, been making use of this time - some of that use productive, some not so much.


As far as the non-productive activities go, games and TV Shows have been the order of the day. I bought Fallout 3 after Christmas and spent a week absorbed in that world. It was a fun time, but alas too short. After I finished Fallout 3, I began the monumental task of watching all of the ten seasons of Stargate: SG-1. My family owns the DVDs and enjoyed the show greatly when they watched it, but I was not around to see most of it. I'm currently in season 4 and certainly won't be finished before school starts, but it's been fun.


The other activities I've engaged in have been far more productive. For one, I've actually begun real work on the novel which I announced I was starting several months ago. It's not that I was exactly idle before, I was doing background writing and plotting out the story in my head, but I had not actual put finger to keyboard on the work itself. Now I have. I began late last week and have written around twenty pages of text. The challenge will be keeping up with the work once school starts on the thirty-first.


I have also done some reading, and have spent time with friends, both of which are endeavors worth pursuing. At the moment, I am reading the book called Red Mars, as well as slowly making my way through Gregory Boyd's book God at War. Expect reviews of both when I finish. I will also be starting my reading for next semester's literature class some time in the next few days.


This coming semester will be my final one at Orange Coast College before I move on to a four-year university. I hope to make it into the Philosophy program at UCLA, but if not UCI is secured thanks to their "Transfer Acceptance Guarantee." It's going to be a busy semester, as I'm taking five classes, but I'm looking forward to all of them. They are: British Literature after 1800, History of the US to 1876, Elementary German 2, Contemporary Philosophy and the Teaching Profession. It seems, in some ways, like going backwards because these are general education type classes, but they were required by the philosophy major at UCI. Nevertheless, I managed to get ones that interest me. The last class is the only one I'm taking that isn't required, but I wanted the chance to learn more about the career I'm going into, especially since the class is taught by one of the better teachers I've ever had. Sadly, because of the huge loss of hours at work, I'm looking for a new job and I may have to drop that class in order to be available for more hours at a new job.


All in all, I've been having a good break and am looking forward to a good semester. I hope everything is going well for all of you. God Bless and goodbye for now.