In Continuum.

But that's not going to stop the party animals from cheering their heads off on this day. Little pockets of people are going to be gathered in places today, in small pubs and clubs, or in houses and parties, all counting down to the same minute of the night when the minute hand meets the hour hand for the second time in the day. Everything that leads up to the countdown sure is fun, with all the drinks and all the music, with all the people and all the partying. It is the hours after midnight that is somewhat sad, to me, the way you realize that everything is still pretty much the same as an hour before. People will be giving speeches on stages and in front of crowds, about the past year and the year to come. People would be given hopes for a better year, only for them to be dashed in the days to come. There'd be this great build-up to the midnight hour, you know, people would be anticipating for it. As if some divine intervention would occur, that all the wars and all the poverty in the world would seize to exist in the next year. There is a possibility, of course, that for one year in human history, people wouldn't be killed because of some kind of war, somewhere in this world. There is a possibility, but humans were never built to be this peaceful and this kind. You see the same thing happening every single year, and you lose hope all over again. But don't worry, you really only have to wait till those minutes before midnight on the next thirty-first of December to begin to hope. 

It is a depressing time of the year, somehow, the way everything goes back to square one, all over again. The new year is really just another day, it really doesn't make a difference. But you've survived this long from the first day of the year until now, and it just kinda sucks to know that it is all going to snap back to square one all over again within a second. Five, four, three, two, and one - sorry, you have to start all over again because that's the way it is. All your efforts go down the drain, somehow, and it isn't helped by the fact that the new year also ushers in a brand new semester at school. Not that school is torturous or anything, though. After all, the friends are certain enjoyable, and being in the same torturous situation with a whole bunch of people just makes it less, well, torturous. But still, if only school could be just about the classes and the friends, and less of the quizzes and the exams. The new year is going to have a lot of those coming, a lot more semesters, a lot more assignments, a lot more projects. They are not all unwelcoming, but there are times when you just want to know that you haven't got anything to do at all for the next couple of weeks. So yes, all your efforts kind of come to a stop, you are back in square one, and the first of January is always the most depressing day of the entire year. 

I try not to look at the last entry of last year, for the most part, or the first entry of this year for that matter. I was a slave to all the hopes and all the dreams of 2008, and you don't really want to be reminded of how much hope you harbored for this coming year. You don't want to start on the wrong foot of course, nobody wants to start off a year knowing that it is going to suck. But this year hasn't been very good for a lot of people out there, for the ones I know and the ones I don't. For one, the financial crisis probably took a toll on a lot of people out there, with one entire country going bankrupt because of it. The idea of a country going bankrupt probably never came across anybody's minds, but it sure happened to my dear Iceland this year. And then there were the bombings, the killing, people dying, and all those kind of things happening over and over again, all around the world. I mean, on a personal level, the year hasn't been the kindest of all years, sure. But when you think about it on a larger scale, when you flip through the newspapers and magazines of the last couple of months, you start to realize how trivial your problems are, somehow. The financial crisis, for one, didn't hit my family very hard. I am sure, on some level, it has an effect on everybody out there. But we are managing well, we are doing OK. We are the luckier ones, I suppose, and everything has been well in that department. 

Still, there are probably some resolutions that I failed to achieve, though I vaguely recall not making any resolutions. There isn't a point going back to that entry to read what I had to say, since it is already too late to make any amendments. For now, on the last day of the year, I just feel like doing whatever that I have been doing for the most part of the year - everything normal. You know, eating and drinking, listening to music and talking to friends, the unlucky ones who are going to be alone as they countdown silently to themselves. It is going to be rather boring, but at least we are not going to be letdown by the silence in the first minutes of 2009. Never mind the loud music and the party, everything dies down at the end of the day, the silence will swallow us whole. You don't have expectations when you are alone, you don't wish for anything particularly different next year. When you are alone, you just want everything to happen as per normal, and that is exactly what you are going to get when the clock strikes twelve. No expectations, no disappointments, and everybody is happy even if you are all alone and lonely. The last day of the year is going to be a party for some, but a meditation for others. What has come to pass in the last year, what have we done and not done? Questions will be asked, though some of them would be unanswered. Like a question that has been lingering in my mind for a while now - what happened? 

There are a lot of things that happened this year, the kind of things you can't help but to ask yourself, just what in the world happened back there? There are times when you get a definitive answer to things, and other times when you are left to wonder on your own. You never really get the reason to everything, but there are times when we are just comforted that it is over. That is what I feel now, to know that things are over and done with, despite never really knowing some of the answers. Ignorance can be bliss at times, when you just leave things behind and allow them to fester in the past, and there alone. Memories are only good if you don't have to deal with them, and that is the case for me right now. Other than that, good things and bad things have happened, just like any other year really. As you grow older, you kind of realize that no matter how much you hope for something good to happen, they always happen right along side the bad ones. It really doesn't make a difference after some time, so you really should just skip the praying to the drinking. Anyway, it has been a decent year, though I can safely say that 2007 was way better in general. I mean, sure I experienced that nasty break up thing, but it was a life-long lesson that I shall not soon forget. 

So, 2009, I don't think I am going to hope for too much. Perhaps, just the courage to face whatever that I have to face, and just live like I've always lived for the past twenty two years. That is really what everybody should be hoping for, I suppose, just wishing that they'd survive this coming year as well. If the last year was pretty good for you, then hope for the same thing to carry on in this coming one. If the last year sucked for you, then you really should hope for the same courage to pull you through. So I suppose, good luck to you and myself in this coming year, and let's hope that the damn MRT station is ready soon. And as for the rest, let's just keep breathing, and hope that everything turns out just a little bit better, and the bad things won't be half as bad as it is supposed to be. 

On a lighter note, Angelica (my philosophy lecturer) was kind enough to send me, via e-mail, a scan of her baby, seven months on into her pregnancy - in 3D! Little Johann is looking really peaceful in her stomach indeed! Let's hope that everything turns out for them next year, too.