New Year's Eve Thoughts
I just bathed and got into new clothes, by which I mean clean ones. My others are in the ‘To Be Washed’ pile which is several inches deep on the kitchen floor. And no wonder: everyone in the family has at least 2 changes of clothing to be washed and dried by the day after tomorrow.
It’s good to be back in nice, warm (comparatively) Shanghai, even if it’s now so cold that it snowed yesterday while we weren’t here for the first time in ten years. I heard this from a report; I wasn’t here, as aforesaid, because of several accidents occurring during the journey from Tianjin and held up the journey considerably. Also the snowfall caused the highways to Shanghai to be closed, so the family spent a whole night crammed into the car. It’s not an experience I particularly relish or want to repeat.
In less than 2 hours, this year will be over. It’s strange that the year seemed so long while it lasted, but now seems like a mere flash in the pan: blink, blink, it’s gone. I suppose that now would be the appropriate time to write out all my thought and reflections on the past year and my years in secondary school, complete with a tinge of teary-eyed nostalgia. Well, not I. I refuse to get carried away with emotion…always distrusted it. Anyway, I don’t think I’ve too much to regret. In my years in secondary school, I’ve finished the library’s store of good English books, gotten a perfect score on a test paper (English, in Year Two), made many acquaintances, and had some friends. Of course I had some foes, but they’re not on the ‘Do Not Regret’ list.
Of course God only knows how I made those friends in the first place; or even the acquaintances. Considering the fact that I was a perfectly horrible little beast in my first few years, I should only have gotten deadly enemies. And I did get a few, including one who lobbed bricks at me during recess.
So maybe that’s my first and biggest regret: that I went temporarily mad for 2 or 3 years (I have, curiously, very few distinct memories of that time; I can’t even recall my classmates from that period) and got on the wrong side of everybody within 20 kilometres. My others would certainly include not enjoying the time more and bitching less, not studying enough, not saving enough money, and not tossing stink bombs at the Cue Ball’s head during the last assembly of the year. All the same, I’ve enjoyed myself for most of what I can remember (I especially remember the euphoria that hit me—and I do mean light-headed got-to-tell-the-whole-world-how-glad-I-am euphoria—when the Pig got a horrible score on his English oral test; he’d been bragging about his perfect score the previous year for long enough). It’s been a funny old life, as a character in one of my more obscure novels put it.
Right now, I regret not getting enough souvenirs to go around. I’ve no idea how I’m going to appease Wolf for the conspicuous absence of a Lone Wolf book, especially after I kept reassuring him that the bookstore held every issue of every series known to men. (It didn’t.) I’ve also lost nearly every cent I have by stupidly leaving my wallet in the train on the way back to Beijing. It’s a pity, as it contained Kelvin’s souvenir (coins). Oh well, I can replace those.
You know, I wonder if I should make some resolutions just so I can get a thrill out of breaking them.
It’s good to be back in nice, warm (comparatively) Shanghai, even if it’s now so cold that it snowed yesterday while we weren’t here for the first time in ten years. I heard this from a report; I wasn’t here, as aforesaid, because of several accidents occurring during the journey from Tianjin and held up the journey considerably. Also the snowfall caused the highways to Shanghai to be closed, so the family spent a whole night crammed into the car. It’s not an experience I particularly relish or want to repeat.
In less than 2 hours, this year will be over. It’s strange that the year seemed so long while it lasted, but now seems like a mere flash in the pan: blink, blink, it’s gone. I suppose that now would be the appropriate time to write out all my thought and reflections on the past year and my years in secondary school, complete with a tinge of teary-eyed nostalgia. Well, not I. I refuse to get carried away with emotion…always distrusted it. Anyway, I don’t think I’ve too much to regret. In my years in secondary school, I’ve finished the library’s store of good English books, gotten a perfect score on a test paper (English, in Year Two), made many acquaintances, and had some friends. Of course I had some foes, but they’re not on the ‘Do Not Regret’ list.
Of course God only knows how I made those friends in the first place; or even the acquaintances. Considering the fact that I was a perfectly horrible little beast in my first few years, I should only have gotten deadly enemies. And I did get a few, including one who lobbed bricks at me during recess.
So maybe that’s my first and biggest regret: that I went temporarily mad for 2 or 3 years (I have, curiously, very few distinct memories of that time; I can’t even recall my classmates from that period) and got on the wrong side of everybody within 20 kilometres. My others would certainly include not enjoying the time more and bitching less, not studying enough, not saving enough money, and not tossing stink bombs at the Cue Ball’s head during the last assembly of the year. All the same, I’ve enjoyed myself for most of what I can remember (I especially remember the euphoria that hit me—and I do mean light-headed got-to-tell-the-whole-world-how-glad-I-am euphoria—when the Pig got a horrible score on his English oral test; he’d been bragging about his perfect score the previous year for long enough). It’s been a funny old life, as a character in one of my more obscure novels put it.
Right now, I regret not getting enough souvenirs to go around. I’ve no idea how I’m going to appease Wolf for the conspicuous absence of a Lone Wolf book, especially after I kept reassuring him that the bookstore held every issue of every series known to men. (It didn’t.) I’ve also lost nearly every cent I have by stupidly leaving my wallet in the train on the way back to Beijing. It’s a pity, as it contained Kelvin’s souvenir (coins). Oh well, I can replace those.
You know, I wonder if I should make some resolutions just so I can get a thrill out of breaking them.
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