An Entertaining Month

The past month has been one without obligations for school. Ideally, this would mean that I had caught up on my ever-lengthening reading list, caught up with all my long-distance friends, and finished at least a couple of the many projects I have started over the last year. What actually happened was more along the lines of adding more books to the reading list (though reading a few), and unsuccessfully catching up with people or projects as I found myself sucked into the world of entertainment. I watched several movies, both in theaters and via the wonders of Digital Video Disc, played a decent amount of Nintendo Wii, and kept up with all the online news about our economic and political climates.

Most notably, I think, and also what will leave a large void in my life (at least temporarily, while I get used to it) is that I completed watching all 7 seasons of The West Wing. Rest assured, I DID NOT watch all 7 seasons in the past month (more like over the past 9 months), but I did knock out a large chunk of them. And just this afternoon I put in the final disc of season 7, traveling nostalgically through the memories over the 8 years of the Bartlett White House along with CJ Cregg, Josh Lyman, Toby Zeigler, and President Josiah Bartlett. I am a little sad that I missed the West Wing boat when the show was actually on television, but I truly enjoyed all the hours I devoted to Netflix-ing the series. I even cried a few times, particularly in the incredibly sad final episodes after John Spencer passed away in real life, and so had to be written off the show.

Other notable entertainment pursuits included seeing Slumdog Millionaire (fantastic!) and Seven Pounds (meh) in theaters, and watching Beetlejuice for the very first time. It is true; my roommate was astounded that I had never seen it. Especially seeing as that she has owned the movie for most of the 8 years I have known her.

And, finally, over the 2nd weekend of January I traveled to my sister's home in Kansas to celebrate my nephew's first birthday, and the addition of a puppy to their family. It was a good weekend, and I can hardly believe that K is already a year old! (Or that they decided a puppy was a good idea, frankly, but that's another topic all together.) So, as everyone thinks pictures of babies are a good idea, I will leave you with a couple from K's 12th month of life: