This year I...
January: ... lost the first 'close relative who had been in my life since my birth.'
February: ... bought my own DJing equipment.
March: ... discovered that my body thinks I am a fragile Victorian flower.
April: ... wrote an essay about the epic failings of my ex - a long essay. 
May: ... ranted about the ethical shortcomings of certain New Age ways of thinking.
June: ... explained my views about 'open communication' in relationships.
July: ... discussed Marilyn Manson and Slayer in one of my classes on apocalypticism.
August: ... was in a car accident that ultimately caused me to need a new car.
September: ... shared my thoughts on one variant of the classic 'should the psychologically/socially-fucked-up be allowed to breed?' controversy.
October: ... started to become a lot more comfortable with teaching.
November: ... provided my incredibly catty perspective on my ex's subsequent relationship choices.
December: ... had a lengthy series of computer problems.
I think that selection illustrates pretty conclusively that this has not been a very good year for me. I feel that whereas 2007 had a lot of "look at the great positive emotional things you are capable of" lessons, 2008 had a lot of "look at the great negative emotional things you are capable of" lessons.
(Fun fact: In April and November of this year, I was already thinking that very month, "I know what I'm putting in my New Year's meme from this month." 
I could have even highlighted a similar entry from February, but I figured that would only serve to spread the bloody splatter of this issue into an even less vaguely-horse-like shape.)
Lessons are good in any case, I figure, but still, I'm looking forward to this coming year being more pleasant. Other than the very poor financial prospects - I foresee my consuming lots of tea and soup this year 
- I actually see a fair bit of potential already, but I'll keep the specifics to myself for now.
In other news, it looks like I DJed quite a lot this year:
January 31Comments
>> Canticle wrote:
Feel free to slap me around for this (and not in the good Las Vegas way), but I think your year has, more than being negative, been one in which you've had a lot opportunity build up. With obvious exceptions (it's never a good thing to lose family), a lot of the negative things you've encountered are speedbumps more than walls. Losing your car sucked, but hey, better car is the end result. Not being with a lousy ex is stressful (see my own recent post), but not being with them in and of itself puts you in a better position than you would be should the opposite be true.
Not that it wasn't a year filled with events that belong in the Event Horizon of Dumb that surrounds the Black Hole of Stupidity that is much of humanity, but really, you're in enviable position compared to most.
Lord it over them.Friday, January 02 08:32 PM>> Thiyavat wrote:
Canticle: I kind of thought I'd already implied most of what you're saying there, but upon re-reading my entry I realize that I'm taking too much of what I assume people know of me for granted. i.e. I don't think anything is a pure loss unless one is uncreative enough to leave it as one, so when I said 'negative' I had already auto-translated that in my own mind as 'challenging and sucky at the time but useful and good to have experienced in the long run.'
A lot of the things you mention I'm not even at all troubled by now anyway. e.g. I like the car/video card/social-emotional situation/etc. that I have now better than the previous one anyway. I didn't think I'd made it sound like I was bemoaning the loss of anything so much as just noting that it happened. i.e. again, it sucked at the time, certain moments of memory still suck depending on the issue, and a lot of my reason for saying it was a bad year is based on % of time spent feeling crappy for various reasons. But it's not like I wish any of it hadn't happened - it wasn't bad in terms of 'things I can't accept' or anything like that. I suspect no year ever would be inasmuch as regret is something of a foreign concept in my world. :)
So as for slapping-around urges, I find myself annoyed at the implication that I don't realize the obvious (to me) point that I have it better than most people. Something in my head is going "Oh come on, you seriously think I am ever *not* lording it over other people?" :P But that is probably the PMS speaking so never mind that.Friday, January 02 09:26 PM>> Canticle wrote:
Heh, see, when I hear someone say something is 'negative', my brain translates that as 'terrible'. I think it comes from from (a granted unfortunate) perception that people view negative situations as bad ones, whereas yourself, you hold it more to what I hold it as, a learning experience. Sorry about that!Saturday, January 03 01:33 AM>> Canticle wrote:
Posted to soon...
I wanted to add that I think my ignorance stems more from having next to no time to socialize and get to know folks better than I do right now, I should fix that in the new year. Not that I'm huge on new year's resolutions, it just seems like a good thing to do =)Saturday, January 03 01:39 AM
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