Christmas Cards

So every single year my mom begs us to make Christmas cards with a picture of the family on it. You know the ones where everyone poses in front of a Christmas tree and then the picture is sent out as the actual card rather than buying a card from the store. So while I was studying for exams I had this immense urge to create a Christmas card for the parents for this year. I used photoshop for the first time to make the card, and I think it looks really good. It is not amazing or anything, but it looks really good. It is still not completely done and it may also be altered in order to have the picture of the family be different or even have a different message, and basically just logistical issues, but other than that it is pretty much complete. Here are the images of the Christmas card that I made:

Front View	Back View

The project took me a little over 4 hours all together and I think it ended up looking really nice. I am extremely proud of myself and I can't wait to design more interesting creations using photoshop. It's really fun when you learn how to use it properly, and actually is not that complicated. It just has a unique way of doing things.

Make sure to comment on the pictures and tell me how you like them and if there is anything that I need to change in order to make them look better. If I change anything major I'll create a new post with the updated pictures.

In a holiday mood,
-Aram the Garmo

Graduation

So the past couple of weeks have been filled with intensive studying sessions and also examinations in order to finish my final year as an undergraduate. When I get back to California I will have been graduated and will have my Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. I feel all smart.

As my exam results come out on 11 June, I figure I am going to try and make predictions as to what my grades will be for all of my classes depending on the amount of work I did and how well I did on the exam.


EDUC1002(Contexts for Learning): 50%
MATH3152(Coding Theory):65%
MATH2015(Analysis 2):55%
MATH2032(Rings, Polynomials, & Fields):80%
MATH3024(Homotopy and Surfaces):90%

I hope these are my final grades, because I need to pass all of my classes and average a 65% in order to fully qualify into UC Davis' Masters program. As of right now I have been conditionally excepted into UC Davis' teaching credential/masters program. I have already set up my living for next year, and can't wait to be back in Davis.

As I have more free time I will be discussing some topics from the past that I wanted to blog about, but never had time, and I will do this in the coming days. I will also hopefully get back into writing in this blog.

Enthusiastically,
-Aram the Garmo

Impossible Dreams

It's sort of funny how people tend to have impossible dreams. It helps them move forward and be able to accomplish more than they ever would have been able to otherwise. But sometimes it can turn a person lethargic due to the fact they don't know how to accomplish their dream, or they have so many dreams they don't know which to pursue. I seem to fall under the latter category.

I feel like there are so many different things I want to accomplish in life there has got to be absolutely no time to ever actually do everything I want. I think not even 100 years is going to be enough to be able to do all I want, which is a sad yet realistic ideal. I blame most of it on my inability to sleep less than 9 hours a night. This takes a large chunk out of my day. I wish I was like normal humans who only needed around 7 hours of sleep, and like most teenagers who can survive on 2. But unfortuantely I am not and so I have less time to accomplish the impossible.

Now if you are like my dad, you will probably think that nothing is impossible. If you set your mind to it you can accomplish any goal you ever wanted. Now although I believe that for most things, I feel that there are limitations. An example, it is currently impossible to stand in the center of the Earth. That would be one dream that would literally be impossible. You would be dead by the time you got there. But my impossibility relies more on the fact that I have so many goals in life that I will never be able to accomplish all of them. To understand I will list most of my goals in life:

• Teach a child math well enough for them to be the next 'genius' in mathematics.
• Solve Fermat's last theorem using only theorems available to him.
• Prove that there are infintely many twin primes.
• Understand all topics of mathematics.
• Understand all topics of Chemsitry.
• Understand all topics of Physics.
• Contribute something to the field of Physics.
• Understand the ideas of most (famous) philosophers.
• Perform in an actual dance company.
• Write a science fiction book.
• Create a website (that people actually visit).
• Be listened to.
• Get married.
• Learn the following languages:
  • Italian
  • French
  • German
  • Swedish
  • Arabic
  • Chinese (Mandarin)
  • Japanese
  • Latin
  • Greek
  • Russian
• Stay on top of video games.
• Read over 100 books
• And probably other things I can't remember right now

So as you can see my list is fairly long and will not ever be accomplished. I don't even know where to really begin. I feel like my life takes turns. One second my entire dream is to be a professional dancer, and then the next I'm back to being a computer geek, and then the next I'm on a teaching frenzy. It's like I jump from topic to topic never being able to accomplish anything in any one topic because of it. I don't know where to begin and so I don't know where to end. I also feel being social with friends hinders my goals. The only reason I feel they hinder me is when they want to go out clubbing. Now don't get me wrong, I love going clubbing, but it ends up wasting so much time. That is at least 5 hours of your life that you are ruining because you are going out. It helps that I prefer not to get drunk so that the next day I feel more refreshed, but clubbing takes a lot out of you. I wish sometimes it was easy to live without friends.

Well, those are my impossible dreams. My true goal in life is to accomplish just one of those. Which one, I have no idea, but I hope one day it will come to me.

Unpredictably yours,
-Aram the Garmo

CA Same-Sex Marriage ruling

So this is just a quick note because I feel everyone should know this news. The Supreme Court of California ruled yesterday that banning homosexuals from marriage is discriminatory and therefore is unconstitutional. In essence, gays now have the right to marry. If you would like to hear about the report from an actual news agency [Reuters]. That is all I basically wanted to state for today. Have a good night!

Gayly,
-Aram the Garmo

Busy Life

So I was talking to my friend Alberto the other day and I realised why I'm going crazy. The main reason is because I am absolutely not busy enough. I am going to compare what I do now on a daily basis as compared to what I used to do last year in order to show the difference in activity level.

This year:

• Dance Expose
• 5 classes (semester system)
• LGBT Society
• Hanging out with friends
• Applying for Masters Program
• Finding somewhere to live next year

And that is pretty much all. Now compare it to just last year.

Last Year:

• Telemark Dance Troupe
• 6 classes (quarter system)
• LGBT Centre
• President of a fraternity
• Hanging out with friends
• Finding out requisies for Teaching Credentials
• Applying for Study Abroad in UK
• Working around 15-20 hours per week
• Participating in the Student Board of Directors for Sodexho
• Working with a trade union to help them unionise
• Going to Theatre performances for Dance Major

Now of course it isn't that huge of a difference, but it's enough to make me outrageously bored now, and with nothing to do. It has caused me to think a lot and also streamline my life even more, which also gives me more free time unfortunately.

I think this may be one of the reasons I can't wait to go back to California since life there is much more welcoming to being busy. I can easily get a job, and can easily make myself super busy super quickly. And with my new computer next year, I can easily restart playing video games once I do get more time.

So as for now, I try to make due with the time I have, but boredom causes me to not work which then causes me to get behind everything. I need more work stress in my life.

In complete boredom,
-Aram the Garmo

Shopping Spree

So I was feeling down the other day due to some issues in my life, and I decided that it was time to do something about it. I had saved up £250 on the side for a rainy day, and so I decided that since I was in the middle of a downpour that I should look into using it. So I decided to take the money and participate in some retail therapy. For those who don't know, retail therapy is when you go out to a mall, or shopping district, and buy massive amounts of items, spending more money than you have, in order to feel better. The main way that retail therapy works is that you go out and you buy brand new clothes which make you look good. Since then you look good on the outside, you feel that you can newly conquer the world and get whatever you want due to your new amazing looks. This then creates a heightened experience of euphoria in which you feel good about yourself and whatever issues you were going through seem insignificant. Retail therapy usually works best after a break-up in order to make yourself know that it wasn't because of you bad looks that you broke-up.

So I decided retail therapy was in order in order to make myself feel better. I ended up buying some really good stuff, and almost wish I had more money and time in order to be able to buy even more stuff. But I am going to show all the things I bought cause they are pretty cool!

A shirt from River Island - £10	A shirt from Top Man - $14
Leather Dunlop bag from River Island - £20	Blue Dunlop bag from Top Man - £20
Converse Shoe from Office - £35
Dish Scrubber from Octopus for the Parents - £12	Penguin Flask from Octupus for the Parents - £18

So I hope you liked all of them. I didn't include any links to the websites because all the websites are flash based so I can't even directly link to any of them, but all of the images above are copyrighted by the respective companies they came from, just to let you all know :-p. I also bought stuff from H&M, but they don't put their clothing online for some stupid reason, so I couldn't get images of them, but I bought 2 shorts from them which was cool. I also ended up getting a haircut which was pretty cool.

So after spending around £200 I am feeling much better and feel very sexy. That is pretty much all for today. I'll chat laters!

Feeling Sexy,
-Aram the Garmo

Hidden Post - Loss of Hope