2009

I don't know about you, but I have this personal superstition of mine where I believe that whatever you were doing at the very moment before the clock struck twelve on a significant date would symbolise the outcome of the rest of the year that follows the said date.

In this case, I ushered in 2009 with more than ten glasses of whiskey and beer coursing through my veins, screaming 'HAPPY NEW YEAAAAAAR' in unison with the rest of the club, deafening myself in the process. For that brief moment amidst the flurry of clanking glasses and bottles amongst friends and strangers alike, everybody became friends. Compared to how I celebrated the eve of 2008 by poring over obscenely huge tomes of Fluid Mechanics, I'd say that this 2009 would be a helluva better than 2008, and judging from the number of people who declared how glad they are to see the end of last year, I guess that I am far from alone.

2008 was a year of changes and discovery, for better or worse. I am looking forward to this year, where there will be even more changes to come (graduation and UK baybeh!), as well as one more chance to hit the reset button to undo all of 2008's disasters. After all, is that not the very reason we sing the traditional Auld Lang Syne at the twelfth strike?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

To you, I hope that the confrontations and the distance that popped up yesteryear would be forgotten and forgiven in time, and that perhaps one day the awkward silence between us would cease.

To you, I hope that you would forgive me for being a jerk to you despite your sincerity. I hope the scholarship would open up new horizons for you and your brilliance would find its rightful place.

To you, I could hardly guess what is going through your mind right now but I do hope you know that I have never once looked down on you and that I do indeed consider you a great friend. I really hope it stays that way. Let us smoke up when I'm back for Chinese New Year, shall we? :)

To you and you, I am sorry if I have ever led you on.

To you, I strongly believe that something existed between us for awhile, but perhaps we were both foolish to rush things. For what it is worth you were never a rebound, but someone who happened to be in the right place at the wrong time.

And there was indeed a storm of trials and tribulations. Right now at the end of it all I looked back at the turbulent year that was and saw how much I had grown from the fires that tempered me. Perhaps this is a little too much to say for a 21 year old (I am NOT 22 till I am 22), but we grow through the lessons learnt in suffering, do we not? I resolved to make 2008 the best year ever, a resolution that, in a disturbingly mocking manner, spiralled downwards in the first half of 2008 but then materialised in the late months of the year just in time to save me from the noose in my drawer.

But you know what? It may have its low points that plummeted to the depths of hell itself, but I cherished the 2008 rollercoaster ride, every fucking second of it. I sat through the dreaded EC exams which even the brains of my course shied away from. I took up a job as a student assistant at the college gym and loved every moment of it. I met and made more friends in this year alone that the rest of my college years combined together. I won the Best Prototype award for the ProDEx competition. I finally mapped out the next ten years of my life. Most importantly, I discovered myself during that year; the good, the bad and the ugly.

In the infant hours of 2009 I shall make the same resolution again, just because there is absolutely no reason not to, come what may. I do hope that you too make a similar resolution, for auld lang syne, people. For auld lang syne.