There’s suddenly a strong impetus to finish some projects around the house.

If you’re one of the one or two people who ever visit this blog, you’ve probably noticed I spend quite a bit of time on improving my house. Though there are some frustrating moments (and jobs), for the most part, I enjoy it. I like figuring out how to do something – or using the skills and tools I’ve accumulated during my two decades of adulthood to make my house better – and I take pride in the end results.

Owen is slated to move into the basement. I have been down there a lot in the past 6 months trying to bring it up to readiness for him to live in. Jennifer has spent a lot of time down there, too, including several hours this past Friday. Around Xmas time, I started telling Owen he would hopefully be able to move in to his new room around the time of his birthday. But his birthday is now less than a month away, and there’s just no way the room will be ready by then. Actually, it’s not even a “room” yet.

Of course, the room doesn’t have to be fully completed for him to move down there, but the walls and floor need to be completed. And I can’t finish the walls – or even build the ones that need building – until new mortar is purchased and applied to the two outer walls and electrical is run through the inner walls.

Time and money. It’s always goddam time and money.

Lately, my friends have been really good friends – inviting me over for a beer, meeting me at a pub for a beer, or coming over to my house for a beer. That’s all great – and if you’re one of my friends who have done that, I certainly appreciate it. But it doesn’t get anything done. In fact, the beer probably makes me just feel worse.

Last week, I met up with a friend for a meal. I didn’t drink any alcohol, and after eating we played billiards and then bowled two games. I liked that because we actually did something – we got up off our butts and did a physical activity. So that was a step in the right direction.

But the best thing is actual progress on projects. If I’m gonna get together with someone, I want them to help me with a home-improvement project. Or I want to go to their house to help them with a project. I’m trying to get some stuff done. I need to get some stuff done. But it’s just not happening.

Beneath the stains of time,
The feelings disappear.
You are someone else,
I am still right here.

What have I become,
My sweetest friend?
Everyone I know,
Goes away in the end…

The love of my life,
She left me one day,
I cried when she said,
“I don’t feel the same way”…

Well, another year has wrapped up, and it’s time to take a look at my movie-viewing. In 2016, I made some goals regarding movie watching, and the results were largely underwhelming. So, in 2017, I tried again.

Here’s the complete list of every movie I saw for the first time in 2017.

The first thing to notice is that there’s a grand total of 186 movies on the list. This is an average of more than one every other day. This is probably a record for me, even outdoing my teenage years, and is certainly better than 2016, when I saw merely 55. In fact, I am certain I watched over 200 films this year, but the linked list does not include movies that I had already seen. For one thing, Owen and I watched the first three Harry Potter films together (but I’d seen them before). We also watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and E.T. together, and my younger kids frequently rewatched movies at random times…so a lot of rewatches this year, too.

Beside simply tracking the movies I saw, I also made a goal of seeing at least one film from each decade since the 1910s, and seeing at least one film with a title from each letter of the alphabet.

In both cases, I succeed. I saw 2 movies from the 1910s, in fact, including L’Inferno, which now holds the record for the oldest full-length film I’ve seen (it’s from 1911). The year from which I saw the most movies was 2016, which makes sense since it is the most recent completed year. The youngest movie I’ve seen, incidentally, is Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

I also saw at least one film beginning with each letter of the alphabet. I saw a single movie beginning with the letter X: X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I saw at least two movies beginning with the other 25 letters. The most represented letter was, of course, S. I saw 22 movies with titles beginning with the letter S. The longest holdout was N. I didn’t see a movie starting with an N until October 1st, when I finished watching Night Train to Munich. I also saw four movies with titles that begin with numbers.

My pacing was pretty even, though I went nine full days without watching a single movie from May 15th-May 23rd. But, come on, I had my youngest kid’s birthday, a final paper due in college, and my own college graduation to think about during that time. At the other extreme, from October 6th-12th, I saw one movie each day all seven days, which was the longest such streak. The months in which I saw the most movies were January and October (20 each), both narrowly surpassing July’s total of 19. The month in which I saw the least number of movies was May, with only 8. Second lowest was September, with 10.

I saw six movies at the theater, watched one for school, and saw six while riding in an airplane. I also watched movies in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Massachusetts, and Florida.

My least favorite movie I saw was Carnosaur. The second-worst was Beetlejuice. Only slightly better than these two pieces of garbage was Ghost in the Shell.

Here are the five best movies I saw this year:

5. Blood Diamond

4. The Purple Rose of Cairo

3. Cinderella Man

2. The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years

1. The Prestige

And now here’s a listing of my favorite and least favorite courses while at Hamline. I was just going to write about two courses (the best and the worst), but then I realized that there are a few different criteria for those two poles. So, instead of awarding any course a “Best” or a “Worst,” I’m gonna provide a few categories.

There are really four things to take into consideration: the course which presented the most enjoyable information, the course that afforded me the most enjoyable time in class, the class that was the easiest for me to ace, and the course in which I ended up with the highest grade. …And their opposites.

Most Enjoyable Information
The most enjoyable information was in my Horror Film course, which I took in the fall of 2014. Though I’m a big film buff, I’d often shied away from horror films. I’ve been interested in them, but always kind of nervous (scared?) to watch them. This course gave me some great exposure to a lot of great horror films, and the books were very interesting, too.

Most Enjoyable Time in Class
This had to be the Reform Movements course I took for my minor in History (Fall 2016). The students were a varied bunch, but we sat in a square, facing each other, and different students had to lead the class each day, so we got to know each other well. The camaraderie was better than in other courses, and I even made friends with one student, with whom I later roomed with during our time at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research in April of this year.

Easiest Course
During the summer of 2012, I interned as an associate editor for Freethought House, thus fulfilling the degree requirement of being an intern. I was already volunteering with Freethought House anyway, so nothing really change for me that summer except for two in-person meetings with my advisor and three brief questionnaires I had to fax in. Piece of cake.

Highest Grade
If my best class is the one in which I obtained the highest grade, then my best class was Music in the World’s Cultures, which I took in the summer of 2016. I accrued 995 of the course’s 1,000 points, but I also participated in the course’s extra credit assignment, which garnered me another 99 points. All told, I scored 109% in the class.

Least Enjoyable Information
…But that one music class also came with the least enjoyable information. Hardly any of the information was even interesting; it was a lot of “well, there’s no good way to sum up all the music of central Asia in just one class period, so we won’t even try. Just know it’s really diverse. Here’s an example of one piece of their music, which is sure to not give you a good sampling. Now take this quiz which asks excruciatingly exacting questions about what you just learned, even though some of it has nothing to do with music.”
Here’s a sample question from the class: Which central Asian country lies between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea?
A) Armenia
B) Iran
C) Tajikistan
D) Turkmenistan
Give up? The correct answer is:
E) Since this isn’t a geography class, who cares?

Least Enjoyable Time in Class
My least favorite time in class was Women in Literature, which I took in the summer of 2011. The professor was great, and the information was interesting, but the class was squeezed into one month (instead of the normal three), so it was intense! Also, I had hand, foot, and mouth disease and sat in the class shivering with a fever on a couple occasions. I even showed up for the first class about 15 minutes late, since I was driving there but then turned around and went home when Jennifer told me Owen’s fever was spiking. Once I got home, I told Jennifer I either had to go to class or go and drop the class (either way, I had to get to campus pronto!), so that made for a crappy start. That June was very hot and humid, too, so the classroom was terribly uncomfortable. Night classes were always the hardest, anyway.

Hardest Course
Senior Seminar, which I just completed last month, was the hardest course. Even before the first day of class, I had to read 250 pages out of a novel in preparation, and the coursework never let up. I had to give two presentations and turn in, among other things, a 20+ page research paper.

Lowest Grade
Unfortunately, every instructor did not keep an exact point tally of grades. For example, in the Reform Movements course, the professor simply said she was grading us on attendance, participation, and on our final paper and presentation. I had perfect attendance in that class, so I assume I got 100% on that, but she never gave me any grade information on the presentation. Did I get 100%? Or 90%? Or something lower? I have no clue. I know I got an A in the class, but that could mean anything above a 93%. And, actually, I got an A in every class, even though I know I didn’t get a perfect 100% in every class, I don’t know which one came out on the bottom. If I had to guess, I’d say I probably “only” got a 95% in Textual Studies and Criticism (Spring 2010), since I got an A- on a couple papers.