Wrap me in nostalgia

Here's me in 8th grade (truth be told, it's just a picture). What I wouldn't give to still have that shirt, and that head of hair. Sometimes when I'm at my parents' house, I like to read old elementary report cards. They remind me of how intrinsic a lot of our characteristics are. To paraphrase, John is creative and has a wit beyond his years, but is overanxious and has unreasonably high expectations of himself and others. And he's awful at woodworking. All very much still true, except the part about the wit.

All is slow and easy here in Florida. My parents are retired and somewhat elder-acting beyond their years, particularly my dad. He's 72, but he retired when he was 59, so he sort of acts like he's 80-something. But it's always a nice time ... lots of gin rummy, bran cereal, crossword puzzles, dips in the pool, bloody Marys, Sherlock Holmes marathons and the wit of Rush Limbaugh. All very much appreciated, except the part about the wit.

In other news, I have scored some new classy-ass threads that will prove useful when I return to Connecticut, as I've been invited to two marketing interviews (the two for which I applied): Mars and Unilever. I also have my courses lined up. We continue with our required first-year "Organizational Perspectives," the classes named for the viewpoints taken in the class. Next quarter, that means "Employee" and "The Operations Engine," as well as Global Macroeconomics. The two electives for which I signed up are Statistical Modeling and Financial Reporting, the latter a prerequisite for Financial Statement Analysis in the second half of the spring.

I have some friends in the area I'm going to try to get together with, and am especially looking for something interesting to do on New Year's Eve. It's so odd to me that there's been so little fanfare about this being a new decade. My dad is quick to argue that 2010 is not a new decade, but is the 10th year that marks the end of a decade that began Jan. 1, 2001. I'm then quick to argue that a "decade" can comprise any 10-year period, so even Feb. 14, 1956, to Feb. 13, 1966, is a decade, technically. He is then quick to say that a "new decade" implicitly refers to the nth decade of a new century; in this case, the first decade of the 21st century, which will end Dec. 31, 2010. I am then quick to say that nobody cares about that, since everyone but he refers to decades by the number in the tens column ('50s, '60s, '70s, etc.), not their ordinal relationship within the context of a particular century. Anyway, you can look forward to having conversations like this when your parents retire, or when you retire.