The end of an era

OK, its really only the end of my 3 weeks of from school, but it feels like I am going through a major lifestyle change. No more sleeping in until 8-9, no more staying up to watch Jimmy Kimmel, no more back-to-back episodes of Blind Date. You know, I never really took advantage of the possibilities of daytime TV. During college there was not a day that went by where myself and/or one of my roommates watched Jerry Springer. Maybe after 28+ years I have grown up a bit.

Things I learned from my time off:

1. It isn't the lack of available time that keeps me from cleaning, its is entirely my lack of motivation to clean.
2. I have 150 channels but there is never anything on.
3. I like reading. Well, I already knew that but had more free time to get some of it done.
4. There are people that go to the gym at 10am on Wednesdays and most of them are in better shape than I am. I'm not sure why. When I go after work I mix in better with the non-bodybuilding crowd.
5. Lunch pisses me off. I hate spending time making lunch. Maybe that's why sandwiches are so common for lunch and less common for dinner.
6. If you sleep past 9am all of your meals are thrown off. Breakfast is often around 10, which means lunch gets put off until after 1:30-2, which naturally forces you into a late dinner. I prefer my 5:45 breakfast and 11:15 lunch. They make my 5:30 dinner much more satisfying.
7. iPods kick ass. It was on my list last Christmas, last birthday and this Christmas, but I didn't get one. So I took Amanda's since she rarely uses it. I've only put 2 CDs on it because I am filling it with Podcasts. Soccer talks shows, NPR Books, Slate, AirTalk, MediaMatters, etc. Its everything good about talk radio minus the commercials. i just hope Amanda doesn't want it back. Plus its good that her parents gave her a blue Mini so I don't look weird carrying a pink iPod.
8. On certain days you can watch soccer non-stop on Fox Soccer Channel. If I didn't;t have to go to my Dad's on Boxing Day (Dec. 26) I could have watched English matches from 4:30am to 4pm without seeing a repeat.
9. My job encourages me to drink more water. There were at least 2 days during the break where it hit 5:00 before I realized that I had lived on coffee and Diet Coke all day, which explained the headaches. At least I had tons of days at the gym where I got some water in me.
10. There is enough useless crap on the internet to keep me entertained all day. I rarely put in that much seat time, but when I did I found all kinds of cool crap. Like this website/blog where people add in random conversations that they heard that day in New York City or Powell's Books, which my uncle told me about. It is a massive independent bookstore in Portland that has daily book reviews.

Things I accomplished during my break:
1. organized my pile of paid bills
2. cleaned my desk
3. completed 2/3 of my to do list (the section on "minimalizing" went untouched)
4. Read 1 1/2 books (I stopped reading Planet Simpson because despite the fact that it was about the Simpsons, it was a crappy book. The author compared Bart to Kurt Cobain for about 20 pages.) I am now deeply entrenched in a biography about Khrushchev.
5. Washed all of my towels and sheets.
6. Recovered from a minor cold
7. Helped Amanda maintain her sanity during a 5 week battle with a cold
8. Watched Liverpool win 9 games in a row
9. Ate too many Christmas cookies, threw some away to avoid going way overboard (sorry Mom)
10. Failed at my attempt to re-establish my school-based sleeping schedule.

So that's my break in review.

A few things to look forward to:

Over on the Life Outside the Rat Race blog they had a member's only essay contest. Since I clearly would have kicked all of their asses, I served as one of the judges. Results will be posted soon. I don't know where, but I will let you know. What they don't know is that there will be an actual prize awarded valued at over 40,000 lira. That's Italian currency.

Tomorrow I will post a new Douchebag of the Week. I work hard on this since nobody sends me nominees. This hard work has paid off this week as I have a record 10 nominees. All of great quality and a few unofficially nominated by other bloggers.