NYE + good riddance

Spent another New Year's Eve atop Steve's apartment building on 54th Street! Ridiculous to be so high above so many frozen, silly people. Apparently the New Year's Eve "screen" starts counting down from 50 instead of 10... meh.

I am very glad 2012 is over. The calendar year means less to me than the change of seasons, but I am forcing myself to accept something symbolic about the start of a new year, just to be hopeful.

2012 was probably the most difficult year of my little life -- at least, post-Yosemite (June-December). I spent all my savings, started hating a job I once loved, stressed myself out to the point of mania, had some typical and deeply disturbing quarter-life crisis realizations (e.g., I've wasted my life developing skills I don't want, I've alienated everyone I love, I need to live in the mountains, etc.), saw the death of my hedgehog, stopped sleeping. I have also spent all of my vacation days until April 1st, so a mental health day or two is out.

I tried to do some reparations over the holidays, for which I had minimal time off. I've found that sleeping more resolves about 75% of the problems, but is only possible when, in the zero-sum game of life, I sacrifice other time-consuming tasks like cleaning, playing my violin, and hanging out with Don. I'm currently revising how I approach these three things.

On the bright side, I did pretty well in my Syntax I class

and learned some unwelcome but necessary lessons about working, the office, and "best practices." I would say I'm a wiser and better-equipped human being -- which I suppose is the most anyone can say after each successive year of life -- but am still pretty bitter about it. I feel delicate and bruised, as if personal growth battered my insides.