The World's a Blur

The end of 2004 is approaching, and so I had high hopes that I could finish off my old business and start afresh in the new year. However, due to my sloth, this looks increasingly unlikely. It isn't impossible, but it sure seems improbable. As I get on in life, it irks me that I seem to have the speed settings of a lawn mower: slow or all-out balls to the wall frenzy. When I come off a crazy period like finals, the throttle gets stuck somewhere between lazy and unbelievably lazy, and I have the darndest time trying to ease myself into a pattern that allows some kind of productivity. Tomorrow for New Year's Eve, it pains me to say that I will most likely spend the time at the LAN party over at a friend of mine's place. I don't mind doing the occasional LAN party, but soemthing feels wrong about spending such a momentous time of reflection and insight yelling across the room about pointless trivialities - like who just fragged who. I suppose, when you get down to it, the New Year is just another day, albeit an arbitrary one designed to change the year. But despite that knowledge, it still feels like one should get on with it off the right foot, as it were. My deep seated preference leads me to want something more meaningful, whatever that may be. I suppose that each day is a new day, a time to set aside past problems and begin anew the challenges of the future. This sounds nice, but if you're stuck in a rut, it sure doesn't feel like a new day. The new year is something 120,000 some odd people will not be experiencing. I am saddened by the photographs and destruction written about in Asia lately. The desolation is hard to miss, with boats buried in the sand, and bodies burning everywhere. Tragedy strikes sometimes with a blunt instrument, smouldering out the flames of human perseverance and other times just a deftly, it delicately swats at a single soul. This can be hard to take, and though I know not a soul over there, I believe that they need our compassion and our aid now. If I could, I would spend the rest of the break helping out over there, but it is not to be. As the death of this year comes around, given the circumstances, I think it only right to pass some time dwelling on the problems this world faces now, and what our role can be in the future to alleviate them.