my tentative schedule for next year ...

March, April, May: Volunteer in Malawi, explore the country, travel elsewhere in Africa ...

June, July, August: Visit friends in London, take some trips around England, tour Scotland, visit Paris, hike in Switzerland ...

September ==> : New Zealand! Visit family, explore the south island, work on the farm, stay for Christmas ...

anecdotal ...

when i was a child, my grandmother noticed how thoroughly i wash my hands and exclaimed to my mother: "he'll be a doctor some day!" ..... it turned out that i simply had OCD ... d'oh!

Ayn Rand, in short

i just finished reading Ayn Rand's early novel Anthem. it was quite enjoyable, nice and short (a hundred pages, compared to her main writings Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead which are closer to a thousand pages) and was a very good introduction to her philosophy of obectivism. while Anthem's themes are similar to those of 1984, it's important to note that Anthem was written over a decade before this masterpiece ... quite impressive, in my opinion.

online literature

you may have noticed that i do much of my reading online (when i'm bored at work, in fact.) if you're interested in reading online (at work?) i suggest two sites:

byGosh.com has a good list of the 'best' free online novels of the 20th Century

and

The Online Books Page at U-Penn has a comprehensive list of all free online novels, searchable by author

Jon Stewart on net neutrality and online gambling