The secret part is pretty optional.

And my Secret Santa is Barb! I got a Time-Life picture book, Strange but True: The World's Weirdest Wonders.

Ooh, that sounds like good Secret Santa.

I have no secret santa. I do, however, have a Wallybee, and an early Christmas pressie courtesy thereof. It's Life: The Science of Biology (http://www.amazon.com/Life-Science-Biology-David-Sadava/dp/0716799014/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229484564&sr=1-1). It's all Hec's fault! A few weeks ago he asked what uni course people would want to do, just for themselves. Got me to thinking, I love the weird and wonderful (and the Wallybee), but it's really about time I had some more rigour in my biology knowledge. Time I got beyond the popularisations and into a genuine biology textbook.

So, I do some careful research via the Uni of Melbourne and the accumulated resources of the interwebs, and a trip to the Melbourne uni bookshop for final confirmation of the book's credentials (it has a picture of an echidna). Wallybee then buys this magnificent 1,100 page tome for me. (She has since told people that in the Uni bookshop, I was like a mouse in a rice sack. I find that rather charming.)

Oh, also on the list, and unearthed by the same process: How Children Develop. [link] We're going to have one of our own shortly, after all. Won't it be awesome to watch him develop a sense of time and self and a bunch of other conceptual tools? (I think developing a sense of echidnas is a little more haphazard.)

But I digress. I now have this biology textbook, and the fun part about all this is that there is so much cool in living creatures, and I generally find that it just gets cooler, the deeper you go. Like, scientists get all excited about finding evidence of water on Mars, and that makes life possible there. And I think fair enough, but why is water so important here. I mean, obviously yes on Earth, life on this planet all needs water, but might not another hypothetical planet have another abundant molecule that can perform a similar role? And Chapter 2 gies some detail on what makes water so special, and it's really quite cool.

Now I'm in Chapter 3, the macromolecules (proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and nucleic acids). 2008 is giving me proteins! I shall note here that Wallybee's father is a lecturer in biochemistry. She hasn't yet told them what I wanted for Christmas. Anyway, I am rapidly forming the impression that macromolecules are awesome.

I probably have the timing all backwards, I'm pretty sure that even third-year Biology students aren't supposed to be creating life, but we play the hand we're dealt, am I right?

ETA: Oh, and I get post 33! That's my user number. So that's nice.

I love whenever any of us goes off on a geektastic bent, no matter the topic, that all I can do is sit back and think, "¡mi gente!"

It's such a relief to let the geek hang out. Not that I'm that good at restraining it, but still... you get what I mean.

Hee. My brother was just finishing child development in psych when his first was born. He was a boon of info on why babies are so damned cute and helpless evolutionarily speaking. His own experiment! He hasn't stopped since. He'll happily tell you why the second is so damned pushy in evolutionary terms. Even as he squawks over the second's squawkiness.

The secret part is pretty optional.

That's good, because I can't be secret: I mean, there will be a postal stamp and "international ship" and all of that.

And oh, I also went the the post office on Sunday to mail it, so I'm really crossing my fingers it'll arrive on time.

Also, sorry, but since my New Year was in September, I kindda already did all what you are doing now. So I won't join you into this one.

I would like to amend my earlier 2008 posts and add a big ol' Thank You to the year for seemingly dropping a pretty great potential girlfriend-type-person right in my lap.

You held out 'til the last minute, 2008, but I think you may have done good after all.

ION, it was snowing beautifully in NYC earlier tonight, and was gorgeously holiday-like. Sadly, it has already begun the inevitable melt-to-dirty-slush process.

The secret part is pretty optional.

I think the secret part ends when the gift arrives.

(C'mon, year! Bring me a girl!)

Honestly, it continues to baffle me, this absence of girl. Gris, you're cute as a button, and you have excellent taste in stuff AND spicy brains. I can only assume that there is a girl of exceptional awesomeness out there somewhere, lost in the mail. (Upon reflection, she's possibly making out with the smart, funny lady or gentleman that the universe is planning on sending my way. Bastards.)

2008. Hmm. Let's see:

• I cut back on carbs and started exercising regularly and lost 3 stone.

• I got rubbish about said exercise after the Summer, and let work and other things snowball and keep me from the gym, and slacked off on the carbs, and gradually gained 1 stone back.

• I had a nice wee role in the Bangkok Community Theatre fringe festival back in February, joined the BCT committee as Social convener, got cast in the next 2 plays they did, developed (or rather honed) crushes on two cast mates, and contrived to alienate one and embarrass myself spectacularly in front of the other before he left to go to China. So that didn't go so well. But the acting stuff was great fun.

• I ran a SingalongaSoundofMusic evening for two nights, and it was a roaring success.

• I think I got better at being a teacher. I'm still crappy crappy crappy at admin/paperwork, and I really don't stick to the planning, but I think I'm getting better at what I do.

• I'm back to teaching Year 3 (Grade 3, academically, Grade 2 agewise) again, and enjoying it enormously.

• My class ROCKS. They are the best class I've had to date. Granted I keep saying that, but I don't think I've lost perspective - I think I've just been very lucky. I feel blessed in my employers (I mean, more money would be great, and better resources - but it's a very happy work environment) and in my colleagues and my kids.

• I think I'm becoming more hermitty, and less sociable. Probably I need to do something about this. Um.

So...hopes for next year?

• Get back to the gym, because it will help me lose weight and feel better.

• Cut down on carbs again, because I have now discovered that carbs make me feel like crap. Hopefully this will help me to lose weight, but even if it doesn't, I know it will help me to feel better.

• Do more acting.

• Possibly do a little directing in The Fringe? Maybe?

• Get out of the flat more often, whether for pub quizes or dancing.

• Be a better teacher.

• Be a better friend.

• Take risks.

...I'd like to say that I have some hopes for finding a partner, but, you know, I really don't. Still, I should at least make sure I don't close any doors on opportunities to meet cool people and form connections with them; this year I fucked things up.

I cut back on carbs and started exercising regularly and lost 3 stone.

(that's 42 amazing pounds for us 'mericans) GO FAY!

2008 had one very extreme low, and many highs.

• DW's dad lost his 2 year battle with leukemia in late January. A horrible, terrible, awful start to 2008.
• In March, DW and I decided that we want to be parents and have been on that journey ever since.
• In August, we decided to tie the knot since it became legal in CA. (Let us not discuss the passage of Prop 8 in November.)
• DW, her mom, and I are heading out to my parents' place next week for Christmas. It'll be a first on many levels, which is Something considering DW and I have been together for 14 years.

Despite some recent disappointments, I am ending the year mostly on a high note. I am thankful for my great friends and family. I am hopeful for one tiny-but-huge little miracle from 2009.