Next Year's Goals

I finally finished my House marathon, so I can write my essay today and quit spending my evenings with blood clots, seizures and the like. In addition to the stuff I was watching for to have material for my essay, I noticed a lot of interesting things about the show. For one thing, it has some great characterization (which is a lot of what my essay is about). For another, it gives us the truly great comedy team of Laurie and Spencer. We already knew Hugh Laurie was a great comedian, but Jesse Spencer has to be one of the best straight men working on television today (and I mean that in the comedy sense). He doesn't get much to say, but watch Chase's responses to most of House's lines and antics. Once you start noticing his reactions, you get to where you start watching just for that because it's so hilarious. Seriously, the boy could have had a career in silent film if he'd been born a century earlier.

I would say that I don't know how I'll spend my evenings now that I don't have TV episodes to watch, but I have work to do, so I guess that's what I'll be doing now. I might allow some sofa time this weekend. I think I have a cold coming on that tried to start on Christmas Eve. I fought it back then, but now the sniffling and coughing have started again, and sofa time may be required for full recovery. We'll see. I have potential New Year's Eve plans, but if this continues I may declare it a stay in year.

I've been thinking about what my goals will be next year, and I've realized that there are a lot of things I've kept saying I've always wanted to do that I've never actually done. A few of them are simple enough, so I'm going to force myself to go for it. Others are more complicated or expensive. For instance, there's a summer program at Oxford where you stay in their dorms for a week and take non-credit classes on various topics about England, some of which involve touring and excursions. I don't think I want to continue my formal education to the point of pursuing another degree, but this kind of thing sounds ideal, and I could get at least a taste of the Oxford experience I didn't get when I didn't win a Rhodes Scholarship (which probably turned out for the best because I was totally lying to myself about what I wanted to do with my life at the time, and the subjects I'd said I wanted to study would have made me miserable). During one of the sessions that might actually fit into my calendar this summer, they have a course on English choral music. It doesn't look like there's much actual singing since it doesn't require musical experience (and in very traditional English choral music there's no role for adult female sopranos since they use boy sopranos), but it could still be fun. There are also classes on history and literature. Unfortunately, the program is pretty expensive. I could afford it if I get a good book contract, I guess, but I know I'll have some other big expenses this year, like probably a new car and very likely a new AC/heater unit for my house. I guess if I took one of the literature or creative writing classes I could write the whole thing off my taxes. The deadline to sign up for this year is April 1, so I may set up some goals and use that as a reward.

But now I have to brave Target during the after-Christmas sale -- even though I don't particularly want any after-Christmas stuff. I just need things like fabric softener and contact lens solution. Meanwhile, if you want to read more blatherings by me, I'm the blogger for the day at 2B Read, a group blog of various authors.