Hello readers! It's ... um ... been a while?
In the time that I've not been posting here, I saw Danielle twice, got a
Tumblr, worked at the local day camp that I worked at last year for the summer, and started and finished my second-to-last semester of college. I've been doing some reading and some film viewing, but not as much as I would've hoped for. Let's take a look at the Summer Goals post to evaluate.
1) Read
- This is so simple it goes without saying. I have a stack of eleven books from the library to get through, four of them being "new" books. I aim to get through all of them, including the three I have on reserve that are slowly making their way towards me. Additionally, I have a reading list (eighteen books long, including works like Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe, and Sorrows of Young Werther) for two of my upcoming fall courses that I want to try to partially work my way through to get a head start on the course material. And perhaps one or two other books that I've been meaning to get to for a while. In other words, who is probably going to have close to 70 books read by the end of the year?
- Additionally, I've had a Harry Potter re-read on the horizon for a while and this seems like an appropriate summer to do so, especially because I've talked about the idea with Danielle. And the re-read won't be a part of my book count for the year. I only count new books.
I'm to 51 books for the year, namely because I wasn't quite able to keep up with some readings for classes ... like
Moby Dick. But that shall be finished ... most likely over the break. Long story short, I was slowing down with the readings, taking notes in the margins ... and things kept building up a bit, but I had the class discussions and Wikipedia and Sparknotes to keep me more or less abreast of things.
The Potter re-read? Yeeeeah ... books 1 and 2 were checks ... and then we jumped ahead to book 7, but I didn't finish the re-read of that. XD
2) Watch- Dexter: During the second spring break period my college had, I picked up season 1 of Dexter from the library, having read three of the five novels and always wanting to watch the show, but not being able to since we didn't get Showtime. I marathoned the season over a few days and immediately wanted more. I proceeded to check out seasons 2 and 4, watching the second season over the last week-ish, but waiting on season 4 until I could get my hands on season 3. After season 4, I aim to either wait until season 5 is on DVD, or I'll ask the glorious Internets for assistance.
- Doctor Who: Believe it or not, I haven't seen all of Doctor Who. ... I mean New Who. I do aim to watch what I can of it and I've said it numerous times, but I have a friend with ALL of Classic Who, so yeah ... there's that. But back to New Who. I have most of series 1 to finish watching (5 to 7 episodes) and a smidge of series 2 to finish (2 to 3 episodes). And I'm so going to. Finally.
- Movies: A bunch of classics and new films, like The Graduate, Apocalypse Now, and Transsiberian, among others. And perhaps some re-watches, too, like Dr. Strangelove, The Usual Suspects, and Fight Club.
Okay ... well ... I got through season 3 of
Dexter and I've now got seasons 4 and 5 on my external. As for
Doctor Who, that's a check! But as for the re-watches and other DVD viewings ... that's a no. Well, I did see
Bon Cop, Bad Cop,
Bridget Jones's Diary, and
Howl ... and
Sorcerer's Stone,
Chamber of Secrets, and one or two other movies. But as for in-theater viewings since then, there's been
X-Men: First Class,
Super 8,
Midnight In Paris,
Deathly Hallows, Part 2,
Captain America,
Cowboys and Aliens,
Drive,
50/50,
The Muppets,
Crazy, Stupid, Love,
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, and
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.
3) Reorganize
- Bookshelf: I seriously want more space on my bookshelf for books from college and other such things. I mean, to start, I can clean out or move my collection of Rolling Stone backissues ... and do something about all those photo albums and chachkas ...
- Wall: My wall is a jumble of postcards, ticket stubs, posters, and other miscellaneous items from the last year or two. I have a bunch more posters and things I want up there, but to do that, there needs to be some reorganization. We'll see how things fare.
- Notes: I've been wanting to do this for a while: type up my class notes. Why? So I don't have to worry about carrying around notes for a previous class in a spiral notebook. And to save paper and whatnot. Shouldn't take too long with my typing skills ... hopefully.
Well ... could've had more progress there. Got through some of the magazines. Didn't really reorganize the wall, but I moved King Tut to behind the computer desk and put Scott Pilgrim in the center over my bed. And I got a good deal of my class notes from last semester typed up.
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Otherwise ... I went to a Maureen Johnson Q&A and saw Paul McCartney at Yankee Stadium over the summer and both were excellent! ^_^ And I caught Andrew Bird in October. Incredible! And Robbers on High Street in October, too!
A good amount of the later half of the year is documented on Dailybooth, so take a peek there. And Tumblr, too.
Back next week with the book and movie lists of the year!
