Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to everyone!
As for 2007, I guess it was pretty good. I got all A's last semester, I have a good group of friends in Hawaii, in general things are pretty good. I don't really have too much to say about 2007 in the end. Another year of school for me, I guess.
I've been over at my grandparent's house in Washington state over the holidays. It's really relaxing. My parents are up here (and my brother lives around here), so I've been hanging out with the family (luckily we get along well). We went over the mountains to Leavenworth, which is this faux Bavarian village in the mountains near ski areas. It was nice - they've got a lot of good resturants and shops, it's cute too - even the gas stations have to have signs that fit into the decor. My brother and dad went skiing at Steven's pass - well, that's it's own story.
I decided to try out downhill skiing again after 12 years (my family went on a ski vacation long, long ago). That was a mistake. I said, "I can't handle anything but easy slopes" and what happens? My brother and dad try to kill me! They took me up on a blue (intermediate) slope. I was very hesitant about going skiing with them because I expected something like that to happen. Yup, they did it. As soon as I saw the slope, I nearly had a anxiety attack. Having not done any skiing except once very, very long ago, I nearly went into a tree when I tried to get down it! I basically walked down the rest of the slope - well, crab walked sideways on skis, but I wasn't skiing, that's for sure. The sad part is that on the green slopes at the bottom I was okay - not great, but it seems I remember some of the basics. But at that point, I wasn't about to ski anymore. Turns out my dad was on the ski team in high school and my brother has been skiing with my dad a few times more recently - including just 2 years ago. If I ever go skiing again, it won't be with those bastards.
Other than that, it was fun.
I've been reading a lot of shoujo manga recently, and now over this trip I've also been reading one of the Maria-sama ga Miteru light novels. It's suprising easy to read, or I've come really far in a short time. Or both. There's a fair amount of furigana as well, so that makes it somewhat easier. Basically I'm siiting there with my dictionary in my lap when I read, but I don't have to look up so many words that it's annoying. Plus it helps that I know most of the story's characters and everything. The only problem is that there are 31 - thirty-freaking-one! - Marimite novels. I picked up one that I thought would not be too far from the end of the OVAs. Turns out there are 5 books between the end of the OVAs and the book I'm reading. I guess I'll just have to get ahold of them and read them all...
Also, I picked up this one volume of manga that's really good (though quite strange) - Densen Complex, by Kidzuki Akira. The first half is incest stories (!) and the second half is 3 stories about people with physical issues - one about a girl with a prosthetic leg, one about a blind girl, and one about a transsexual. All of the stories are really, really well written and powerful. I've been reading quite a bit of manga lately but this one really stands out. So if any of you feel like reading a good manga, go find this one.
Anyways, once more, Happy New Year!