Good Evening and Happy New Year. I decided to start this entry on a light-hearted note. Came online yesterday and an old friend of mine had this game on her entry so I decided to do it just for the hell of it. What harm could it do right? You load up your media player with songs, hit random, and for each question, you write the song title as your player randomly runs through your list. Thusly the first song your player plays answers the first title and so on. There were eighteen questions, and sometimes it works, sometimes it just doesn't make sense but that is the fun part. It really doesn't mean anything but it's fun to see what happens because let us remember the songs are mostly yours and represent your taste. I won't put down all the questions and answers, but here are some of the highlights of mine: - What's my love life like? You Know My Name- Chris Cornell - What describes your relationship future? The Unforgiven- Metallica - What song will I dance to at my wedding? Bad Timing- Blue Rodeo - What do you think of your parents? Sitting, Waiting, Wishing- Jack Johnson - Where would you go on a first date? Landing In London- Three Doors Down - Drug of choice? Seven Drunken Nights- The Irish Rovers - What is the thing I like doing most? Donkey Riding- Great Big Sea It would seem as though my name has something to do with my love life, that my relationships aren't going to be too forgiving, my wedding will come at a poor time and that I have the urge to fly for about 5/6 hours to get a first date. And for those of you who know what Donkey Riding is, contrary to this activity, I have not been donkey riding in awhile and never, ever while drunk. Friends don't let friends ride drunk *wink, wink* Seems to me that every university in the province starts back on the 8th except mine. I start school tomorrow... I'm a little concerned but know that I shouldn't be because the more I think and worry about it, the worse off I am. Not to mention the fact that This is the shortest semester. In essence I only have... well, around 37 days of school for this entire semester. Might make me feel good if I kept a count down... would improve morale and make me realize that I don't have many days to accumulate good marks. There's a huge part of me that's beginning to realize that this school thing isn't going to last forever and then after that where do we go from there? I know people who are planning on getting their masters just so they can actually put off work and 'life' for two more years. As we probably discussed before, I am definitely not one of those people. But what then? Back in the day... or rather, back in our parents day, we would have come out of high school and just continued working where we were working before we graduated. After that we'd look to get promoted within the company or leave when we had out-grown the company; get educated when we needed it, if we needed if for our chosen field. Seems to me like we've decided to pick our field before we even got into it but now we have to sell ourselves, complete with almost no experience but a lot of education. Of course, this doesn't apply to being a jobs like being a police officer, doctor, medic, teacher, etc. Your path is pretty straight which cuts out a lot of guessing and awkwardness. For the rest of us, it's a small crash course in selling the one item you've been trying to sell in some way, shape or form since we were aware of competition and the world extending further than our little palms. And then how do we know that we're not underselling ourselves? I mean you go in, put yourself through four years of whatever you want to call it: training, indoctrination, education, bribery and is there really a proper place to start on the scale? Who's to say that even with your piece of paper, you won't end up starting at the same place you would have if you had just two year experience? In that case, apparently four years of education and the spending of thousands of dollars is equal to two years of experience and the earning of thousands of dollars. Was it really worth it? Somebody? Anybody? And no, meeting and marrying your sweetheart from college doesn't count as a legitimate reason for that. This is probably me feeling stupid about not being as old as I want to be. This is me hoping that everything that I'm doing is not in vain. This is me worrying and feeling tied down in the bad way. I decided that this year I will spend less money all around and save more. I know what you may be thinking, and yes it is possible for someone who appears to be a penny pincher to cut back because I did so review and the second the third quarter of my year are largely painted with frivilous purchases. The more one has, the more one spends. The more one spends, the less one has. So pretty soon, all that one actually has turns into what one use to have and bankbook begins to shrink, and decimal places disappear. I'm hoping that by the end of it all I'll have enough money saved to actually do something good with it. Haven't decided what and I am fully aware that the first thing many of us would say is "Travel. Captain, you should take a vacation." Hell, even I said that but I'm not too sure that that's what I want to do. At the end of the day I'd have payed to experience a country by myself with a few souviners to remind me of my experience in case I should develop amnesia and are unable to forget... or worse, begin to lose my memory at an early age. Don't laugh, it's starting to happen. Going with someone else is different and believe me when I say I wouldn't travel with just anyone. Something more concrete perhaps? Play 500 dollars worth of lottery tickets and hope I win more than the 500 dollar prize? A few hundred thousand would be enough but I'd gladly accept the 2, 4 or 25 million jackpot as well. Rumor has it that at 22 million, the average person could live off of just the interest alone if said 22 million was never touched. Or was it 55 million? No, 22. Problem is that everyone plays the large lotteries so not only are the chances low to begin with, but your chances of having to split the pot are pretty high. Still, I wouldn't complain. But I never subscribed to dumb chance, particularly when it costs me. Playing once or twice every year is good enough for me thanks. Besides, I'm convinced that any given person values things - money, a person, an item - much more and will take better care of said thing if they had to work for it, IE. work for money, prove oneself to a potential lover, prove to the bank that they can afford a loan. Just an observation in life. Speaking of observations in life, Hitler probably had parkinsons. Even I didn't see that one coming my friends. More importantly, I'm in this course called Organizational Behaviour. Took it in high school but I think I have to take two of them for my degree. Essentially it's all about trends in the workplace, how to motivate workers, how to respond, deal with and create programs that'll work based on how they operate. It's every hard-ass managers wet dream due to the manipulation factor involved. I enjoy it though. They say that overall, money is not the biggest motivator ... try saying that to the immigrant who can barely make rent and put food on the table for his family. Yea, the one who doesn't speak enough english to actually participate in your surveys. That's the one. The problem with the worlds 'most' and 'generally' is that 50 + 1 is the requisite for the label. What it boils down to boys and girls is whether you see humanity as innately good, or innately bad. From there the rest mainly falls into place. Nothing wrong with thinking 50-50, but eventually you'll pick a side. It's kinda like how they say bisexuality is just a stop over to one or the other sides. In other school news, my books for this semester are going to run about 800 dollars. They weren't lying when they said that business books cost a lot. Luckily, the unofficial university book store down the street will probably provide a few texts at a decent cost. I'm thinking this semester will be better than the last. I feel better about it regardless of the fact that I'm carrying 6.5 classes. They say that the relation between stress and output is positive to a certain point, whereby it peaks and than forms a negative slope. They call that a breaking point. I say that it's negotiable. Cordially, - Captain B. Sober