A New Year, A New Me?

I’ve been getting a lot done this week. It’s kinda nice being off. I’m catching up on things that should have been done back in November, sorting through magazines and papers, and just cleaning up. I don’t often write blog posts prior to posting them, but one day I did, while my student was doing his self-study period, and it got mixed up in a bunch of paperwork at the computer. Reading it just now made me think back to fall. My Honey had finished raking up the last of the leaves and the days had become obviously shorter. Now we have snowbanks my height in front of our house and it’s getting a little dangerous trying to pull out of the driveway with the speeding cars.

I had lamented the state of my health this past year. In 2011 I encountered a few hiccups and was looking forward to 2012 and those hiccups improving. Instead I hit some bumps and the year has been a bit of an uphill battle. Sometimes it was a little ridiculous and I found myself saying ‘What the fxxx?!’ more than usual. While I complain to The Honey about things in life, my health is usually not one of them. I limit it to ‘I’m not feeling well’. I just figure there are people out there who are a lot worse off than me. While I may be worse off than some, there are others worse than me. Being proactive about things can help me overcome these feelings, but sometimes it seems like a losing battle.

Here it is a change in the year. Winter (weather-wise) has only been here for a few weeks (a week by the calendar) and I find myself already hibernating. I’m trying to find errands or excuses to go out at lunch and get out of the classroom, but it’s pretty hard. My winter coat had to retire – it just wasn’t going to make it through another winter – so hopefully my new one will make getting out and about easier. We managed to get out for New Years, although we were very tempted to stay in. We ventured to Sparks St. to see what the party and music was like. It’s about time something like this happened because we, like a large part of the population it seems, have been complaining about the lack of an outdoor event for the nation’s capital for ages. We couldn’t not go! It seemed like fun; food, drinks, good music, and lots and lots of people. Too many people for My Honey so we moved on to City Hall where there was more good music. We lacked the celebratory spirit though. For some reason we just weren’t in the mood. We ventured further down Elgin St and found a bar with some space. It seemed like the customers there were like minded. There was a buzz in the air, but none of us got excited until that 10 second countdown appeared on tv. We all cheered and clinked our glasses, had some excitement, then went back to our friends and conversations. It might sound a little sad, but it wasn’t. I think it was what we needed.

A few more days of freedom – aka catching up – then back to work.