December Doldrums

December has never been a great month for me. It's as busy as hell, trying to finish papers, exams, and grading up a storm. Then there are these pesky little single letters that ruined Christmases for years (not that I really celebrate Christmas), and even peskier letters that spell 'New Year's Resolutions,' which I choose not to recognize. To top it off (I'm not whining, really), I still manage to freeze to death under four layers of blankets at night. 'Tis the season to be frowny.

Maybe I'm being melodramatic, but the end of the year always begs for reflection. I'm hoping that this luxury will disappear once I go out into the real world (or the monotony will kill me). As someone who hates doing chores, thinking about everything that I've put off for the last three months gives me the chills. Take Christmas card writing. What's the point? I communicate with almost everyone whom I'd like to communicate with via email during the year. Writing cards to acquaintances seems awkward, especially when the two of you drift further and further apart. When do you stop? Two years in? Three?

The hardest part of the holidays is dealing with relationships . How do you reconnect with people who were once your closest confidants? How do you mend fences that can't be mended? This year, I quit. I'm done with unrealistic expectations and emotional minefields. Why should I be striving for a utopia that will never exist?

potpourri

I don't know if I like this new background...seems a bit too chirpy for me.

Dug up this awesome quote from a year ago: "You get a little moody sometimes but I think that’s because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up." I'm almost positive it's the other way around.

After reading a review for Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, I decided to list all of the actors whom I admire for their acting prowess, not to be confused with actors whose looks I admire:

- Mads Mikkelsen (After the Wedding, Open Hearts)
- Robert Downey Jr. (Almost everything)
- James McAvoy (Atonement)
- Johnny Depp (Everything, just everything)
- Daniel Craig (Layer Cake, Casino Royale)
- Clive Owen (Closer, Children of Men, Gosford Park)
- Tony Leung (Lust, Caution)
- David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck)
- Casey Affleck (Gone Baby Gone)
- Javier Bardem (The non-English movies)
- Christian Bale (American Psycho, Rescue Dawn)
- Mark Wahlberg and Matt Dillon

Oh no...I'm drifting into that gray category between good actors and personable/hot actors. I'll stop now before I give myself a headache.

Quotable Quotes

"Being good at commas is like being a good kisser. It's likely that the person is also good at everything else."

"I don't enjoy overly Jewish books."

"That was such a great quote and I used it all the time. I don't quite remember what it was."

I'm a shallow shallow person

Job hunting must be one of the most cheerless and boring activities ever. It's a billion times worse than networking, since at least there's alcohol involved (Suddenly, I know how to make cover letter writing more fun). While fixing my resume, I decided that the only way to go about it was to reinvent the wheel and list everything I've done in the past seven years. During this harrowing exercise, many phrases and quotes floated between my ears, including: "breadth over depth", "jack of all trades, master of none", "more is less", etc. etc. It's little wonder that I keep on complaining about my grades and performance all the time. Sometimes I breathe new life into "being spread to thin." This is where everyone gives me a collective "Duh."

In undergrad, I took...way too many classes each term, did a total of five UROPS and three internships. Nothing really changed in grad school. I TAed 10 classes over three years. Now, in the MBA program, I tried to take 7.5 classes, TA 4 classes, lead 2 clubs, and recruit in one quarter. Life has not changed. Life is not so good.

There is nothing good about breadth over depth unless I want to be on Jeopardy or Who Wants to be a Millionaire. First, my performance is obviously hit or miss...and the misses are pretty awful. Second, I become entrenched in a mindset that everything is short-term. Third, relationships really suffer, and finally, I feel like I'm stagnating as a person. Going absolutely nowhere and regressing.

I try to do too much because things bore me pretty easily, especially when repeated. There's a constant fear that if I cut down by half, I would just putter the other half away. I like to think of myself as somewhat thrill-seeking and hedonistic, so maybe overextending is my control mechanism instead of something more effective and less destructive, like...self-control. Maybe if I believed in New Year's resolutions, I'd work on...right. If anyone knows of a job where I can do something new and exciting every day, please let me know. Thank you.