Best and Worst 2005

Today I was supposed to have the second part of my candidacy exam, but someone missed their flight from the Orange Bowl, so it's been postponed until Monday. I'm having mixed feelings about that. I really wanted to just get it over with today, but I don't really mind having a little extra time to study and recover from yesterday's part. Honestly, I think I'm kind of liking the idea of a few days between parts. I will probably do better work on the next part with some break in between.

Now after that little rambling preamble, I should probably address the title of this post. The couple magazines I read and some of the entertainment websites out there have put together best and worst lists for 2005, so I've been inspired to do my own version of that. I'll probably list entertainment stuff along with personal stuff. It's just kind of fun, and I figured it might make an enjoyable post. So, off we go!

- Best (relatively) new TV show: Grey's Anatomy. No question about this. It is hands down one of the best-written shows on TV right now. I might have put Supernatural down here, but the shapeshifter episode was too much of a weak point for me.

- Best TV show: Gilmore Girls. Not much more to say about this. Anyone who has watched the show should agree with me.

- Best movie: Crash. I would have said Brokeback Mountain because, from what I've heard, it's an amazing movie, that is also pretty politically relevant these days. However, I didn't see that movie yet because it wasn't playing in the theaters at home (no big surprise there) and it's not playing in State College. So, I'm guessing I'll have to wait to rent that one. Crash, by far, is the best movie I've seen this past year, and perhaps in my life. If anyone hasn't seen it yet, they definitely need to. I still think back to some of the scenes in that movie and am just amazed. Perfect cast, perfect writing. That's all I can say to describe it. Well, not all, but I could write many, many posts on the movie, but that's not what this entry is for.

- Best Movie Sequel: Batman Begins. This was the best Batman movie I've seen. Hands down. Harry Potter might have taken this spot, because it also was good and the best of the Harry Potter movies, but now that I've started rereading the book, it's still good, but I'm thinking that too much was left out of it.

- Best Musician: Kelly Clarkson. Yeah, I like her, mainly because she's the only "Idol" that's really done anything. Plus, her music is amazingly good. Every song I've heard of hers lately sounds different than the previous ones, which I like.

- Best Book and Worst Ending: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I loved the book. It rates quite high on the list of the HP books I've read. However, I didn't like the ending so much. That's not because Dumbledore died, although that was sad in and of itself. It was more the whole anticlimatic reveal of Snape being the Half-Blood Prince.

- Worst Book: The DaVinci Code. I can't really remember if I read that this past year or late the year before. Either way, I was really unimpressed with it because some of the plot twists were incredibly transparent. Plus, I had heard all this hype about how amazing the book is and it was on the bestseller list for a gazillion weeks, so I thought it was going to be this amazingly good book. I was left very disappointed. The only good thing about it was the pictures of the artwork (my sister had that version of the book). I could kind of relive the time I went to the Louvre.

- Best Quote from a TV Show: Gilmore Girls. Basically this category could be filled with about 20 quotes from every episode. The funniest one I heard this year was from Lorelai talking to Rory about prison: "Rory, the penal system is not something we enjoy. It's something with a name that makes us giggle." A close runner-up, which I'm not sure if I can remember accurately, is from Grey's Anatomy. I'll need to preface it a little bit to help explain it. A rape victim was brought into the hospital for some surgery or something. Anyway, the victim had bitten off her rapist's penis. So, at one point in the episode Cristina walked up to Meredith in the lobby of the hospital and asked what Meredith was doing. Meredith said, "I'm just sitting here with my penis." Well, I think it's funny. Other people might not, but I got a kick out of it.

- Funniest Moment on a TV show: Lost. The first Hurley-centric episode, with all the bad luck from using the numbers to win the lottery. The funniest part was when Hurley was talking to his stockbroker and a guy fell from the window behind the stockbrocker. I don't know why I really found that funny, because it's not. I guess I just have a very dark sense of humor. I thought all the flashbacks were funny in that episode, though.

On to more personal stuff...

- Best Thing that Happened to me This Year: This is a tie among many things. (1) Starting to see a therapist was definitely a good move on my part. I've tried to deal with my life alone for so long that it's nice to not have to deal all on my own anymore. (2) Failing the candidacy exam the first time. I know that might not sound like the best thing that has happened, but in the end it was a positive. It kind of gave me a jump start to see that things had to change in my life. Plus, I like to think things happen for a reason. (3) Living alone again. This was the result of the candidacy exam. I knew I had to do this to keep myself sane.

- Worst thing that Happened to me This Year: Medical Crises. This past semester was the semester from hell with medical stuff. It started out with having a persistent headache, which I'd been seeing the doctor for now. Then the optometrist I saw sent me to an ophthalmologist, who sent me to a retina specialist to see if the spot that is on my retina was a mole or a malignant melanoma. I also had an MRI done to see if there was anything wrong with my brain that was causing this persistent headache. I also had to have my cholesterol tested because the MRI found a couple non-specific hardened vessel in my brain. So, basically, this whole semester was stress due to health reasons on one level or another. Oh, and I also started seeing a psychiatrist, who put me on anti-depressants, the first of which gave me a slight tremor (which was moderately exacerbated over Thanksgiving dinner because I was tense around my grandmother). The one I'm on now seem to be pretty good. I'm not shaking too badly now, only when I'm really hungry or sitting next to Grandma at the dinner table. So, yeah, this semester was just one big stress-filled few-month period, that will hopefully get better this semester.

- Best and Worst Class I've Taken: Physical Oceanography. The reason this is the worst is that Dr. Bannon can't teach all that well. Plus, when he's grading he doesn't put any effort into giving feedback. On the final, I got points taken of on problem, and there was no indication of what I did wrong. There was just a red 7/10, among others. However, because he didn't teach all that well and the labs were very intensive, I did actually learn a lot from the class. And I've discovered I like Physical Oceanography much better than the chemical realm, so that's a bonus.

- Biggest Surprise of the Year: TAing next semester. I don't think I have to say much more about that one. I didn't think I'd have to teach. But, I guess I do. At least it's something I've taught before, so I have some frame of reference. But, still, I wish I had been better prepared for it.

Alrighty, I think that's it for now. At least I can't think of any more. Plus, this post is getting a little long the way it is. Anyway, I just wanted to do this because I thought it would be kind of fun. Now, I'm just going to relax the rest of the day and get back to studying over the weekend.