I just got back from seeing "Pan's Labyrinth". It was quite good (with some fairly gruesome minor surgery scenes) but I am writing about about the people who sat in front of us. The group was, by our guess, a pair of middle age parents, a daughter and her boyfriend. I initially thought that the reek of booze was spillage on my husband's jacket from his last trip to the bar. But it was soon apparent that they were accompanying their movie with a beverage or two. The boyfriend left, sometime around the boogey man scene, and the rest of the group managed to drink themselves into an incoherent, but loud, mess by the end of the movie. While I enjoy a drink now and again, I don't really understand going to a subtitled historical fantasy/war movie to get hammered. They could barely make their way out of the theatre. It seems like an odd thing to do while at a movie with mom. I spent Monday morning shadowing in the inpatient psych ward at the hospital. Maybe it says more about me, but some of the psychotics actually make more sense to me than the 'normal' people I see all the time. I can understand that, if you honestly believe it is your job to receive signals for the armed forces or spirits are coming through the walls to get you, you could get paranoid or violent. I don't understand people who risk their life acting like an idiot in traffic just to wait two cars ahead at the light. Or spending $50 to sit in a movie, drink out of a flask and talk about your dog.

Some times I feel like I am propelling myself through my day. All my strides are long and purposeful, like I know where I am going and how to get there. I can accomplish what I am setting out for. I am the powerful, confident overachiever that I would like to be.

Other days I feel like I am being dragged from place to place, from task to task. Anything I accomplish is drawn out and painful. More the petulant three year-old that would rather sit at home and watch cartoons than follow their parent around the supermarket.

I am definately in the toddler stage this week. I haven't done anything except the very minimum. I should be reading and learning and staying on top of things but, knowing that I still have months before I am going to be tested, I just don't wanna.

I think my life might be a little off kilter. I had dinner at 4pm tonight and happened to be talking to an old friend of mine who wondered when I had turned 70 and started having dinner in the middle of the day.

Well, the reason I was having dinner so early was so that I would have time to go grocery shopping with my husband and then drive me up to the North East to pick up my car and still get to curling on time. My car was up in Hawkwood because I went to a Ukrainian New Years Eve party and ended up having too many martinis to drive home. My friend makes them with peach schnaps, vodka and cranberry juice so they taste like candy but knock you on your ass. I had to drive to the party because my husband was in Olds to attend a memorial service for an old instructor of his. I would have taken transit instead but I had to go out to the North East before the party to pick up my father-in-law's drycleaning that he needed because he was going to drive to Omaha. My sister-in-law had been in another car accident and her parents thought that she would need their help. Turns out she is fine and noone is going to Omaha in the near future.

To me this sounds like a bad idea sit-com episode. I guess random is better than boring.

I went to a symposium tonight where 4 women doctor's gave talks about their career experiences. What I learned is that everything (stress, pressure on our time, demands from other people) gets harder from here, and then it gets even worse, and then it gets a little bit better. So, if I want to have kids before I am 40 I better do it now. From the stories I heard, I would be lucky to write a licensing exam while 9 months pregnant. It gets much worse.
I came home and told my husband this. He is 9 years older than me, so if I wait until I am 40 to have kids he will be almost 50, and that scares the crap out of him. Don't tell me men don't have biological clocks.

I keep meaning to write something lengthy, significant and well thoughtout for the new year. But either something more important eats up my time or my mind is tired or empty. So I write with nothing more important to say than I am back at school.

I am still sitting on a mountainous list of things that I meant to do over the holidays so I have been thinking a lot about resolutions. I tend to make resolutions on a daily basis, which tend to run along the lines of "Tommorrow I will do better. Tommorrow I will have more energy and be more focused. I will get done more things on my list, especially a couple of those things I really don't want to do. I will be more clever, less bitter and nicer. Tomorrow I will listen to more music and exercise. I will do my makeup, eat breakfast and wear clothes with no wrinkles. Tommorrow I will be prepared for class and will really listen. Tommorrow I will be do better."

Being a new year and the traditional time for reflection, I have been thinking that I should make a resolution I can actually keep. Something that won't leave me with that feeling of guilty failure by mid February. I first considered some specific things, like I will go to the gym in the morning (there was a time in my life that I exercised every day between 6:00 and 8:00am) at least three times a week or bring my lunch from home at least four times a week. Luckily a little self realization shone through and I have cast this aside. Then I was thinking of making more of a general 'change in outlook' resolution; something like trying to judge people less, or not doubt myself so much. This would at least be vague enough that I can't exactly break the resolution, but I don't think trying to change my personality is setting myself up for success.

So I am taking my husband's advice and my resolution for the new year is to eat poutine once a month. I love poutine but I never allow it to pass my lips because of nagging considerations of my underexercised waist line. I guess you could say I am making the anti-resolution but at least I will avoid that episode of February self loathing.

I hope everyone has a very happy New Year.