It was my birthday today; we had a whole bunch of people I like over and drank and talked and had Dairy Queen ice cream cake. That's prettymuch all I need.

So I'm 24. The past year seems to have gone by so fast. Too fast, really, because I had no idea what I was doing while I was 23. I've known since my sophomore year of college that people don't really "grow up," they basically just fake it, but it's still a bit surprising to discover that I can get older without necessarily getting more mature.

(Or maybe I'm wrong, and there's a cutoff I can't foresee, from which I'll look back at my past and wonder "what the hell was he thinking?")

Fact: wisdom comes with experience, not age.

What have I accomplished? In the past year I've written a master's thesis, graduated again, and found employment as a part-time editor and full-time proofreader. However, outside of my resume, real accomplishment has been harder to come by. In the past year, I probably learned more about blogging than I learned about myself... but that's life.

(Well, not life, but graduate school. Though that "school or real life" dichotomy has begun to trouble me: college is life, and would that we could always be so open-minded.)

Jenna asked me tonight, by way of conversation merely, what my goals were for this year, and I'd like to think that they're basically the same. That's slightly depressing, because it means I haven't accomplished as much as I'd hoped — but at least I know where I'm going.

But yeah, I'm old, 24. Some good unnecessary advice for everyone: live!