As part of an on-going tradition, I am now going to do a (hopefully) short summary of the Year of 2008. Yes, an entire year of our lives (from my POV) in a short series of sentences.
This year saw the graduation of my class of IB ’08 from Victoria Park Collegiate Institute. I suppose this sort of thing happens to most everyone and every year, but for us, finishing with an overall average within the top 5% of the world (a first for VPCI) was particularly shiny for me. It felt good to be part of such a class of strange and talented childrens.
This was also the year I would have the last real/scheduled summer vacation until retirement kicks in for me (assuming I live that long and Christ hasn’t come back yet). As such, I’m glad I spent the bulk of my vacation actually on vacation in Hong Kong. One of the greatest experiences I’ve had thus far in my short life has been the time I’ve been blessed with to spend with my dear Uncle Keith and his family, along with my Aunt Margaret (other side of the family now) and company. Learning to dive and making Phoebe? Both very interesting experiments that worked out swimmingly.
This year I also began my post-secondary career in Waterloo-Kitchener. I am glad to be part of the Math-Business program there and have been enjoying residence-life so far, adjusting quite easily to being more or less alone and independent. I do feel kinda–to be honest–shitty about having many of my closer friends from Jaffray all over the place. Benson’s off in McMaster, and Raphael’s back home at George Brown. Then there are the other friends from Jaffray who have been at some sort of UoT since awhile back. I also miss having Shivon (University of Toronto, Downtown) around to make a dynamic (thoroughly heterosexual) duo. And while I’m listing misses, I might as well mention the Missus as well, who is also at UoT.
Then again, I do believe there come a time where a person (especially being a boy) must set off and out for more than just a little while to be alone and fully come into what he is to be as a man in earnest. I’m going to go right on ahead and call this year the year that this phase of life has begun for me. I’m quite glad to mention here that I’ve dutifully and carefully abided by my grandfather’s requests, that I stay clear of gambling, smoking, and drinking while at school. Of course, these aren’t particularly hard to avoid if you know what kinds of values to adopt. I have little intention of breaking my promise now or later (and would almost go as far as to voluntarily swear off any of the above lifestyle choices), but of course, this might just be asking for temptation–so be it!
In any case, the coming year should be just as interesting as this past one, with the finale to my first year of post-secondary schooling and the beginning of my first co-op work term. I also sense there should be some other good developments, like me getting very good at Left 4 Dead and Portal. Oh, and of course there are things to do, places to see, and territory to explore.