A New Beginning

Well 2006 has come and gone. It was a good year full of challenges and many difficulties that I will not soon forget.

Right now I am enjoying my last few days here in my hometown in Winnipeg. This city feels the same as it always has. I am very glad that there is snow here and I am very glad that I was allowed to relax. To be honest, I have been little more then a slug lately. My days have consisted of surfing the web, watching television (<---first time in four months), watching all the movies I have missed, and collecting books I hope to read sometime in the future. Probably one of the best things that I have enjoyed during my stay was being with my family. Though they sometimes get on my nerves, I cannot imagine my life without them. It has been fun and I'm going to miss them. I plan to take many pictures before I head back out to Kingston.

As for school, it's finally starting to look up. Though I won't be heading back with a totally clean slate, I really hope to improve myself this semester. I say the same thing every year, but to be honest I actually did do better this year. It seems like I have more control right now then I did at any point last year. At least there is improvement. I also hope that I can get back into shape and stick to a good training regime. I believe that the physical performance test coming up will be a good motivator. One thing that I am not looking forward to are the long days and lack of sleep that plagues the typical engineering student. Yeah, I'm really not looking forward to that. What I am looking forward to is the new courses that I'll be taking this semester. I finally get a few real civil engineering courses and I get to learn a bit about politics, a subject with I know very little about and have always been eager to discover. My French is getting rusty with lack of practice and my current teacher is not someone I look forward to meeting each day, so that may need improvement. That pretty much covers school, academic-wise.

So I guess here is where I'll talk about my New Year's Resolutions. I haven't really thought about them too much, so they are vague to allow flexibility (which is a good and bad thing). They will be refined at a later date, but I probably will not post them again. Here goes...

Goals for 2007 (in no specific order):

• Focus on Second Language Training EVERYDAY. Doing so may make a BBB rating a reality for this Manitoban student.
  
• Review old material at the end of the week when possible. May stop stress and the exam crunch.
  
• Get out RMC at least once each week, possibly joining an external group. Doing so may prevent insanity
• Train at least four times a week, even if for a little while. Wards off gluttony.
  
• Be satisfied with what I have. Saves money.

And that is that. As you can see they all seem to be school oriented. This is because I am totally focusing on my degree and my future at RMC. To some these goals may seem trivial or otherwise, but for a guy like me who is not a genius these are crucial to success.

On another note, I am finally set on buying a bike in Kingston. I thought that with the chilly weather that I would not be able to make much use of it when the snow came. That idea is now stricken from my mind due to the fact that Kingston has very little snowfall and is like an oven compared to Winnipeg. I don't really care if I get a cheap bike (Wal-Mart brand is fine with me), as long as it gets me from point A to B.

Well that concludes my ramble. This vacation was great and I am glad that I met my friends and family while I was here.

Well Rested,

-Michael U.