Happy New Year!

And happy birthday to my blog. As usual. Nothing much to say today; I am still reading up on inorganic*.

My term-by-term recapitulation of the year:

• January - April: Awesome work term, with much gadget love. The people there are nice, the project's a little repetitive (stick samples in the UV-vis. Rinse, repeat.), and I broke alot of glassware, but I am mainly about the instrumentation. ICP-AES, XRF, Leco, Herzogg...Squee!
• May - August: This term was filled with surprises. I liked organic and hated thermodynamics, due to the way they were taught. (On the other hand, organic lab was...not good...) Biochemistry was cheer-worthy...when it ended. Inorganic was taught by a, um, rather notorious professor, but the course (despite freaky class averages) exceeded all my wildest hopes and got me obsessed. Analytical lecture is very steady, tutorial is something I keep forgetting about (literally), and lab is absolutely lovely. Differential equations, being an introductory course, was sadly trivial; real analysis, on the other hand, pwned me. "Research" was, lacking a better word, weird.
• September - December: Ah, yes. The most recent work term. I don't know what to say. The coworkers are the most swearing-prone bunch I've ever met in my life? The chemistry was almost tedious, the engineering was fascinating. It's hard to say.

As to resolutions...not sure yet. They may include:

• Keeping/raising my cumulative average. I don't think it's going to happen this year, but we'll see.
• Find a co-op job despite the economic downturn. *Waves flag* Students are cheap to hire!
• Learn a concerto. I think I'll start with the Grieg; it's actually doable. I want to do Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G- Op. 23 No. 5** as well, and probably a Chopin Etude.
• The current state of my student research is very much a mess and um, I need to fix that. ASAP, as they say.

*As organic lays neglected in a box somewhere. Also as usual.
**Yes, yes, another overplayed piece. It's overplayed for a reason! To compensate, I am working on some less-overplayed pieces.