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We are now at the perineum of winter holidays… between Christmas and New Years.

Christmas is over, another Zodiac has gone around and I am no better off than I was a year ago. I’ll soon be 27 with a dead-end job and no new prospects (job-related, girl-related or otherwise). What’s worse is that my college-student diet of pizza and beer is no longer handled well by my decidedly non-college-aged body.

Speaking of college, I’ve decided to go back to school. I’ll probably be 30 when I graduate (!), but it’s time I did something other than simply exist.

I hate Christmas. Not for the traditional reasons like to be a contrarian or to oppose consumerism or to challenge society’s religious values. I hate Christmas because I never know what to get anybody. What’s worse is I’m never sure to whom I should give gifts in the first place.

I would be perfectly happy if everyone would stop giving me gifts so that I would no longer be obligated to reciprocate. But, of course, if I were to shun this all-important Christmas tradition I would be seen as a self-centered, scrooge-like abomination of a man.

It’s a lot of pressure, really. First you have to decide who is in your gift-giving circle. Inevitably, someone you’ve determined to be outside your circle will have included you in their circle and you wind up with that awkward moment when both of you realize that there is an unreciprocated gift gesture. Then, for those people you do decide to get a gift, you hope to find something they will appreciate. However, this task is more difficult than it seems–especially if you’re like me and have little to no knowledge of other people’s interests. Sure, you’ve got the one person who is into collecting Disney figurines or duck portraits, but even then you can never be sure if that limited-edition gold-clad Mickey Mouse trading card is something anyone would like. The fact that I try to give gifts that I would like to receive may be the root of my Christmas-present selection difficulties. At least I don’t have to worry about it again for another 11 months.

BTW, I’ve been gathering my thoughts on the topics mentioned in my previous post and will soon share them with you. (Really. I promise!)

Woohoo! Christmas–erm–I mean winter break is upon us. I hope to spend more time updating this blog during this work-free time period. (Whether this is good or bad is for you to decide.)

Topics I hope to touch on in upcoming posts:
* What Christmas is and why we celebrate it (and it’s not what you think)
* The history of timekeeping, and its relation to language
* Sexual doublestandards and why they are valid

So I’ve heard that if you want to be successful you should find the one thing that you would do for free and make a career out of it. Unfortunately, the things that most people would do for free aren’t things that anyone else would pay for.

Take me for example. I enjoy: finding the most obscure and hard-to-find web pages on the Internet (like the MP3 download page for a indie band that covers indie bands), spending an inordinate amount of time exploring completely useless subjects (such as metric time… more on that in an upcoming post), staring at a blank page and trying to think of something with which to fill it, and finding new and less hangover-inducing ways to kill brain cells. These aren’t exactly the things out of which you can build a career.

Actually, my dream job would be working with computers and electronics in relation to music production. I’m not exactly sure how one would make a career out of this endeavor, but I would like to be one of the few to actually accomplish this feat without having to rely on a “day job”. The only thing I need now is motivation.

It’s a good thing I don’t hate my current job.

“Those who quote others are more likely to one day be quoted” -Tom Planter