The Home Skooled: December 2010

So I'm sitting here listening to an eclectic variety of Christmas music. I figure I'd share the weird associations Christmas has for me...old...and new...and kinda just weird. I have a strange love hate of Christmas itself...I was aptly thrown in the "ba humbug" group by one of my friends. I generally hate the stress, uber expensive waste of money and time on stuff, and the empty emotions people try to impress on me. Being "the most wonderful time of the year," "peace on earth," and "the time miracles happen," is a total fail...it's just made up false emotions which aren't true. Not to mention the food is an overall fail...Chinese take out tastes a lot better than turkey and mashed potatoes.

On the other hand, I do like my brother and sisters being home, Christmas presents are always good, and I do find true joy in celebrating the birth of Christ...well actually I could care less about his birth in particular. I find my genuine emotions of the season based on the fact the God sent his own son to earth, made him live like one of us...to be precise a rather poor and boring one of us, and that Christ sacrificed his life by dieing on a cross to take the punishment for our sins (might it be noted that Easter is celebrating his rising from the dead...not the Easter bunny giving us chocolate eggs).

Also associated with Christmas is the beginning of my cycling season. This year it includes joining an awesome team, figuring out this team ride thing, spending a bunch of money, and doing a lot of planning. Last year my training plan was for 300 hours of riding...but I quit paying any attention to it in May. This year I'm planning to ride 350 hours...so an hour a day on average. However I can only ride five days a week...and I have a two month off season...and I have all sorts of family trips...and camps...so I end up averaging something like two hour training rides. Also when you figure the price of team membership, team kit (cycle talk for clothes with lots of sponsors ads on them), and then race registration fees...and I almost forgot about the TWO licenses I need, it costs a lot. But I can't wait to race, I just get the jitters thinking about it!

The really great thing about cycling around here is that the main part of the season runs from March to June. You need to start training three months before this, thus doing most of your training hours in the middle of the winter. Thankfully I've got an indoor trainer so I can ride while I watch movies on my laptop...except that team ride thing I mentioned happens outside...rain or shine...or dumping rain and freezing! On the two hour ride last weekend it took about half an hour for my feet to go numb...whatever, that ain't too bad...except that an hour and a quarter in my hands go numb...and then we have to ride through crazy downtown traffic without being able to feel my shifters...let alone my brake levers. Anyways about three hours later my feet thawed out and life was good again.

The most relevant part of Christmas to this blog is that I'm homeskooled...meaning I'm responsible to get my homework done on whatever schedule it takes. In this case writing about five papers this week and then doing about six papers worth of stuff Christmas week. I must admit this is better than having to cram it into the normal school year, but it doesn't really get one hyped about this whole Christmas thing.

Finally, the best part of Christmas time for me is all the artificial junk which makes life awesome. Exhibit A. My massive hot chocolate/mocha/latte mug, which makes the papers fly by much faster (in case you can't tell from the picture this is about a 24 oz. mug).

Exhibit B. My massive Christmas music collection, which includes Celtic Woman, Owl City, Mannheim Steamroller, Taylor Swift, Il Divo, and best of all Coldplay! (by the way I got some pretty sweet free Christmas albums from these guys Christmas for Kenya )

Click on it if you wanna big enough version to find out what I've actually got playing.

Exhibit C. The bestest invention of style...plaid flannel shirts. As cool as a tee shirt when worn by itself. Insanely warm when layered on top of a tee shirt or under a jacket or sweater. And always cozy (I guess there's a reason I've been accused of being effeminate). These things are way better when your sister (home for Christmas) teaches you how to tailor them so they fit perfectly.

Anyways, Merry Christmas and don't let your toes freeze off...or the Christmas tree fall over...or the kids find their presents...or get any crazy ideas like that bike racing is fun...or...um start hating Christmas music...

On occasion I shock myself...well more accurately on occasion I don't shock myself. Regardless, I find it ironic how style can lead one in circles. Our family used to do these fancy studio photos every year, so we could mail it to distant relatives and friends who would then forget how tall I was in that photo and still comment on how much I'd grown up (unless they consider a half inch growing "a lot"). Any ways when I was about six I wore this black, purple, and green geometrically striped sweaters...perfect eighties look. I think that was the last time I wore that sweater, it has since pained me over the years to look at such an abominable style statement. I think the statement was something like, "It was in my drawer when I opened it, so deal with it."

Give it a couple years and suddenly I'm wearing tee shirts...if it's really cold a sweat shirt. Only freaky grandma types wear sweaters. Then another couple years pass, I now understand that hoodies are cool, but sweat shirts are for like little kids who don't know better. Sweaters seem to be a popular style among cute girls...but definitely not for guys...unless they're mock turtlenecks on super villains. Then last year I discovered something...there are sweaters that aren't baggy misshapen things in eighties colors...and they are warm, and comfy, and uber cool, and I want one. I got one for Christmas that year, that thing has gotten a lot of wear.

So now I'm looking at my Christmas list...about two thirds of the list is clothes...and of that about half is sweaters...so I guess my style has really just unraveled to that same spot again. Here are some examples of what sweaters should and shouldn't look like.