The blasts of January blow Rebecca through and through.

If I were meant to be a lucky person, the food for luck in the New Year would be something I like, instead of black-eyed peas. I have thus resigned myself to lucklessness.

Sarah’s most annoying Christmas presents are the DVD of House and the Scattergories game, but I think they might just cancel each other out. If she watches much more of House, her eyes will glaze over and her brain will turn into spaghetti, and then she’ll finally stop bugging me to play Scattergories with her!

Lesson Learned: Relatives will sometimes react to things in the exact opposite way of what you had expected.

I miss Aunt Carolyn when I go to see a really good movie, like Brokeback Mountain. I really, really wanted to hear her thoughts on it. I'm sure she would have loved it. She was such a movie buff and had such good taste.

Lesson Learned: The co-workers and classmates that you see everyday may be going through something that you can’t even imagine. Or something that you can imagine all too well. Case in Point: Today I was talking to India, and I found out that in 2004, we each lost a parent within a few weeks of each other. While her mom and my dad slowly passed away, we went to the same class and saw each other every week, and until today we had no idea what the other was going through. Cripes.

12-hour workdays? I can handle them. In moderation.

Today I was walking to French class when I saw that someone had written the word “tree” in chalk on the concrete next to one of the steel lampposts on campus and drawn an arrow pointing to it. Odd.

Music of the Month: “Better Days,” by the Goo Goo Dolls; “When I’m Gone,” by Eminem; and “Dirty Little Secret,” by the All-American Rejects.

Shakespeare Quote of the Month: Perdita: “Out, alas! You’d be so lean, that blasts of January would blow you through and through.” - The Winter’s Tale.