Well, another year come and gone. I'm not much for New Years resolutions. My motto is to just live each day better than the one before. HOWEVER, after this year, I definitely need a change. I have decided to go ahead, without reservation, and pursue my MBA. There are several advantages to this: First of all, it's just a good idea. Second, my employer will pay for it. And finally, and probably the most important, it will keep me happy while I figure out what I want to do (on a professional level) with my life. Anybody who's reading this knows that I live with my parents. Anybody who talks to me regularly knows that it's driving me nuts. But aside from my parents being parents, they're pretty good people and have a lot of good things to say. For example, a few months ago my mother told me I was getting old and I needed to do something with my life. That's what started this whole spiral of life-changing thoughts. She recently enlightened me on something else. Not so much enlightened, I guess, as said it out loud. I need to stop talking about things and grab my life by the horns and do it...which is more or less a reiteration of what she told me before. In her words, I have to realize that no matter what I do, I am making a choice. I have to accept that I'm making that choice, acknowledge it, and be okay with it. So if I'm trying to decide between eating liver and eating lutefisk (neither of which are appealing to me in the least) and I have to pick one to eat or starve, I will have to make my decision by choosing what I don't want to eat...not what I do.

I reconnected with a few people from high school this past week. One of them in particular happened to get me seriously thinking about my life again, and back in the "higher education saddle." She happens to be a PhD candidate at Harvard, which I completely admire and think very highly of her for. Not to mention the fact that she's just a good person (or so it would seem...as after 7 or 8 years I don't know her all too well :) ). Anyway, we talked about grad school a bit and she is single handedly responsible for lighting my "hey I'm going back to school" fire again. For some reason it had fizzled out, but upon further review, it would be really stupid of me not to. I am not ready to go back for my PhD yet, and I'm okay with that. I think it's better that I realize that I'm not ready, than it is for me to go and then find out it's not what I want.

Anyway, enough about me. Let's talk about roosters. I've been on this subject for a couple of days now because it's really irritating me. Has anyone seen the Nyquil commercial where the wife says to the husband (as the rooster is sitting on the window sill crowing in the middle of the night) "Sleep like you did before the rooster went blind." I'm taking issue with this advertisement. First of all, how did a blind rooster find its way to the windowsill? Does it live inside? Does it sit there often and so just knows the way? Is the windowsill its dwelling place, so its just always there? And second, and most importantly, why would a rooster randomly start crowing in the middle of the night? I understand that it just went blind, but then wouldn't it be dark for it all the time? And even if the crowing was determined by something else (say a circadian rhythm or something) wouldn't it just continue crowing at the time it has always been crowing? I think the makers of Nyquil's advertisements need to put more research into their material before presenting it to the general population.

Paused

Well, a lot of things have happened since my last post. That seems hard to believe since my last post was just a few weeks ago, but I guess that's life. First, let's start with the Entibidore family. I have not seen them since my last post about them. There is always a light on in the house, however, so it's likely that they are inside. There can be a few reasons for this: most obviously, it's frickin' freezing out and very few people are venturing outside. Granted, we also got our first snow last weekend and the kids should be out playing in it. There is little evidence that that has happened....no snow-person in the yard....no snow forts or snowball aresenals within sight. I think the Entibidores are probably laying low until they get a feel for the neighborhood. I'm running with my theory that the Entibidores were forced out of their last neighborhood, which I'm beginning to think was not too far away from this one. That's the likliest explanation as to why they have not spent too much time outside. Perhaps there are still people around that remember who they are and what they did. I guess it's probably the smartest thing for them to lay low for awhile longer. Today a black car pulled into their driveway....a car I have not seen before. Granted, I have paid them little attention since they moved in so I have no idea what cars are normally there, but this one seemed exceptionally suspicious. I imagine it was probably someone coming to tell them to stay indoors for just a little while longer. It did look like it could be government, though, so perhaps the entire family is working for the CIA or under the witness protection program. I'll keep you posted on this.

What else is new....I've pretty much decided that I'm not going to be going back to school for awhile. My GRE scores are good for 5 years, so I'm going to use that time to figure out exactly what I want to be doing. Which means that there is no reason for me to be living with my parents right now, so I am going to be moving out :) That is making me pretty happy, so things are starting to look up. I'll keep you posted on this as well.

Other than that, I guess not much is new. I got a haircut...it should last me about a month or so. I also got new gloves and a new hat, very exciting. That's it.