The World of Joel

Well I tried my best not to get sick, but that just didn’t happen, and I knew it wasn’t. I had a big Statistics exam on Monday morning at 9am, and I studied real late on Sunday night, and woke up miserable. I went and bombed the exam (no bueno), and got home, called in sick for work, and passed out on my bed and here I am today. I feel better, weak, a bit of a headache, but better. I think my cold was more exhaustion then anything, overworked, deprived of sleep, and stressed out to the max. Finals are in two weeks, my grades are bleh, I am 14 weeks away from Graduation, and its looking 50/50 if I am going to need to take a summer course to actually officially graduate. All I know is that I am back at school today, and I wish I was sleeping. I have some real big posts to post about, but I am just not feeling up to doing these posts justice, so I will put that off until I feel better.

So if I don’t post, its not because I don’t love all my readers (Jenn and Jake), but just because my cold needs to go away in a hurry. Way to much to do in the coming weeks, and very little time to do it.

Many of you who have talked with me recently know that I am really getting the fever to graduate from college. I am finally getting the sense that I am actually going to graduate. I have an outside chance of graduating here in June of 08. One of the first things I had to do was change majors. The only way I could get into UC Irvine was under a Studio Art major, and how I got into that major to begin with I never have understood, but the Economics major I wanted when I transfered wasn’t even offered during Winter of 2007. So I got into the major thinking I would change right when I got into UC Irvine. However I got to the school and they said I had to take a few classes and I would be able to change, and then it was a few more classes and all of a sudden it was Summer of this year and I was still in Studio Art. Over the summer I changed my focus from Economics to Sociology in hope not only to graduate earlier (which I now will) and took four Sociology courses over the summer. Two were Social Psychology classes, one was a theory and the final was a political sociology class. However I wasn’t able to change majors until I took one more Sociology class which I completed during Fall of 2007, and now January 8th, 2008 I am finally no longer a Studio Art major. I am now a Sociology major, I am so much more interested in Sociology then I was with Economics. So now I am a Sociology major, I have to get a few more things to pan out and I could be graduating in six months. How great would that be? I apply for graduation next week, and we will see how that goes. More to come!

Howdy everybody, its once again been about a week since my last post, but for those keeping up you would know that I went to the mountains for a few days to finish out the year. So now I am just starting to get back in the swing of things and getting ready for a huge Winter Quarter starting next Monday (The 7th of January). Can you believe it is already a year ago I started UCI? I can’t. I got to tell you this has been one of the craziest years of college, so much has changed since I started UCI that its hard to figure out what is to come next. I am getting very close to getting my Bachelors degree, I talked with my adviser today at UCI and it seems as though I have a “shot” at a Spring 2008 (that’s right six months from now) graduation. Now I have to get a few things from my last college to make that happen, but here is to hoping!

I am still working on a look back at 2007, my hope is to actually finish it, last year I started and stopped. This is one of those years that I might put behind me as well. I also have some pictures from the mountains that I am hoping to get around to as well. Gosh its tough getting back in the swing of things, I still feel like I need another week or two of vacation. But alas, that won’t be happening anytime soon. Not much else to post up on right now, although I have a lot to tell, that will have to wait for further blog posts. Welcome to 2008 everyone. Did anyone watch Letterman last night? What’s up with the beard? Conan’s wasn’t much better.

This is the first year in a while I haven’t had the chance to do a “year in review” post. Although I love doing them, mostly because there great to read a few years down the road, I hope to get to it at the start of 2008. What a year it has been though, it has had its fair share of ups and downs that for sure, one of the more rocky years in a while. However all in all it was another great year, plenty of great memories, great moments, and all together just great experiences. I am heading up to the mountains for a few days with Jenn and her folks, and then coming back to a grueling Winter quarter. It has been a pleasure folks, I look forward to continue writing to you all in the new year. Happy New Year Everyone.

Merry Christmas Everyone. I am going to make this one of those short and sweet posts. This is a bit of a different Christmas for me, its the first one out of the house, the first one I didn’t watch Christmas in Connecticut at my parents house on Christmas Eve, the first one I am going out of town on Christmas day for. However as much as things changed there are so many things to be thankful for and I have to say without getting any presents I am the luckiest guy in the world for all the great things the lord has blessed me with. Merry Christmas To Everyone, and a Happy New Year!

I have mixed emotions about the last few weeks of a year. First off it is great time to be out of school, the break is much needed and I am enjoying it immensely. However with this time of year comes some things I am not a huge fan of, first off I don’t love family parties, its just a lot of formalities that I have never been a huge fan of. I love Christmas, not only the meaning behind it, the birth of our savior, but also just a great day for everyone to be happy and home and just relaxing. So that takes a lot of the time I have off for the next few weeks.

With basically all of the TV shows I blog about either canceled, waiting for the strike, or finishing up in the next week or so. I have a lot of games still to review, a few pieces of hardware, and some new projects that are un-announced that I am working on as well. So we shall see how the last few weeks of the year end up.

Whatever sort of skill, strategy, or patience it requires to win items on eBay I don’t have it. First off I have been sniped in the last minute of three auctions tonight. I want to buy a bigger memory card for my digital camera, just a simple 4GB memory stick, its like $30 no big deal. Twice i bid in the last 45 seconds of an auction and lost once by a penny and the other time by a dollar. I am not in desperate need of the item but it would be nice to have. I am great at selling things on eBay I have had a lot of success over the years in that, but when it comes to buying I get all panic stricken and always want to bid earlier then necessary. Half the time I think I am getting lousy deals because instead of wanting to get an item I would rather win the auction. Crazy right? Heck you know eBay is loving it. When I finally got a memory card it says:

You won the item in the last few minutes. Congrats, you beat the competition!

That is why I should never be allowed to bid on eBay, I take it more as a game then actually trying to buy a good. Oh well I got my 4GB Memory Stick!

I love the zoo. Jenn loves the zoo. We have gone to the San Diego Zoo once together, and we both have always been a big fan of the place. It is just one of those places that you just feel really relaxed which helps when school gets stressful like it is right now. We made the trip this past Saturday (11/10/07) after my 7am meeting for my job at Bank of America. The drive from where we live is about an hour and a half so its a bit of a hike but well worth it. We got down there, picked up some food (popcorn and hot dog) and were on our way. The day was really relaxing we walked for a good half of the park, and took the bus tour to hit the remaining stops. The more notable stop of the day were the monkey’s and the otters together in one habitat. It was overall just a really fun and relaxing day. And since I don’t put many pictures up of Jenn and I, I thought a few pictures from the Zoo couldn’t hurt.

Let me just say I hate when I start to get on a role with my blog and everything seems to be going well and then I get sick, and everything kind of falls back out of place. So I went to the Genesis concert last Saturday, and it was actually a lot of fun. We went down to the Hollywood Bowl (long drive) and had a good time. Well anyways I got back at like 3am on Sunday and had to do a massive study session for one of my classes which had a Midterm Monday morning. So I knew I wasn’t going to post on Monday, but then Tuesday rolled around and I was sicker then a dog. It is now Friday and I really have been off and on all week, some days have been worse then others, today being one of the more down days.

As many of you know I review video games and I have been getting a ton of packages this week with new games to review and being sick doesn’t make it easy to review all this stuff. It’s tough but I guess someone has to do it. Anyways there is my excuse for not being on the blog for the week, I will be back in full force on Monday. Have a good weekend everyone!

So the time has finally come, I am going to see Genesis tomorrow night at the Hollywood Bowl with my really good friends Chris and Scott. Chris and I have been friends since I can remember, and I went with him to CSUSB while I was there, heck we even carpooled for a bit! Scott and I have known each other since Junior High and I actually haven’t seen him since my High School graduation so it will be good to see him. What got us all together was Genesis, a band mostly known for Phil Collins, is having a reunion tour of sorts and are playing the Hollywood Bowl tonight and tomorrow night. I remember driving around Riverside listening to Genesis on many occasions, and so I brought up the idea with Chris, and we booked it a few months ago! Tomorrow night 7pm, Hollywood Bowl, we are seeing Genesis, it should be great!