Happy New Year!

It’s the last day of the year and I’m back home. It’s only 21.30 and the fireworks have been going off for hours already. I have no parties planned for today, but I don’t mind. New Year’s has never been a very big event in my social calendar and I’m feeling quite content sitting home and sipping tea.

One should give a moment to retrospective musings now, shouldn’t one? Weigh the pros and cons of the year 2005 and pronounce judgment accordingly. Well, it’s been an interesting year certainly in some aspects and a very ordinary one in others. I’ve discovered that I’m definitely not a lawyer, gotten to know myself better and matured a little, made new friends, fulfilled some dreams and created new ones, rediscovered my love of books and noticed that on paper I can occasionally be funny – which can be somewhat stressful, since people may actually get the false impression that I could (expectation that I should?) do the same thing live too.

- Prithee, may that never happen!! You could never pull that off.
- Oh hey, you’re back from Costa Rica, I see.
- And far too soon, I notice! I can see where your line of reasoning is going this time. “I can’t be as funny in real life as I’m on paper – which, by the by, dear girl, is not more than a three-year-old in a sugar high could manage any day – so I’ll just settle for slouching apathetically and not saying a word.”
- What?!! I didn’t say anything of the kind.
- You were going to.
- No, I wasn’t!
- Still, you’ve been slouching.
- Whether I have or haven’t, has nothing to do with this matter. Jeez, you sound like that journalist.
- Which journalist?
- The one from channel one, who is interrogating the presidential candidates and pretending - I can only assume - that he is a judge in an Idols-contest.
- My, my, are you trying to insult me? You need to practice. Make that a New Year’s resolution, girl.
- Maybe I will.
- And no more slouching. I’ll come and kick your ass everytime you try. See, I interrupt my fine vacation just to look after you. You really ought to fall on your knees and kiss my ass.
- Screw you!
- ...and your inner child.
- What?!
- Why don’t you just meditate on that. Christ, we are going to have our hands full next year, aren’t we? I guess I have to cancel the rest of my vacation too, if we are going to make a half-way decent person out of you.
- Why don’t you just worry about yourself first?
- Children these days, no gratitude. I though I had told you before? I’m perfect, I don’t need to change.
- Bugger off.

But seriously, I do have a big list of New Year’s resolutions for next year, since I have great hopes for 2006. Not that 2005 was a bad year either, but next year will be even better. It will be a busy year though, since I intend to finally get my dissertation nearly finished. To this end resolutions
no 1) I will read a minimum of 50 pages of work-related literature every single day – and I mean every single day – during next year; and
no 2) I will write a minimum of twenty pages of my dissertation every month.

I also wish to a) start a healthier life, b) learn to be a little less nice, c) find my own style, d) get more cultural, e) develop opinions and f) hold on to the reserve to kick myself every time I wish to spend an evening/day doing nothing but playing sudoku or doing puzzles. These don’t get classified as resolutions, since from old experience I dare to doubt my capability to stick to them.

- Amen to that.