Sixteen years in the American education system has made me–and a good many others–sort of indifferent to the concept of the New Year.
For us, the New Year really starts in late August or early September right along with the academic year.
Perhpaps a contributing factor to this attitude is the Central Standard time zone. New Year’s Eve TV broadcasts tend to be quite pathetic in comparison to their Eastern counterparts. After the ball dropped in Times Square, the TV promptly switched to a broadcast consisting of retirees awkwardly shuffling to bad jazz music.
After I was done fighting the thought that I was watching my inevitable future on the screen, I began to wonder, what is the significance of celebrating the New Year, and why doesn’t it matter that much to some people?
Anytime something can be remotely construed as “a fresh start,” it makes people feel good. Just as every Sunday some of us vow to attend classes and stay awake for the whole week, millions of people vow to straighten out their lives every Dec. 31.
The cynic in me can’t help but think that New Year’s is the quasi-holiday for those who have screwed up in their lives and need to cling to the mental comfort of a clean slate.
The cynic in me also thinks New Year’s resolutions are commitments to failure.
Perhaps the overplayed eHarmony commercials have inspired you to break your bad relationship cycles. Sure you have good intentions, but you get back to IU and realize that you’ve basically dated everyone from your dorm freshman year, all the opposite-sex members of your circle of friends and all the single friends of your disgustingly happy couple friends.
As the year progresses the signs of scary singledom are all around you: your unmarried aunt Betty and her thirteen cats; your greasy finite math A.I. who goes home to day-old takeout and Star Trek DVD’s; the Jimmy John’s staff members that never seem to go home, ever.
You become increasingly desperate and soon your New Year’s resolution goes out the window with your standards as you find yourself on dates with people you met via Facebook Poke.
Maybe you’ve decided to drop the extra pounds you put on courtesy of Wright food court combined with late-night Taco Bell runs. Once again, you have good intentions. Yet you just can’t bring yourself to go to the SRSC. It’s not your fault that your obsessive-compulsive disorder simply is not compatible with using communal workout equipment that nobody ever sprays down after their workout. Before you know it, 2009 has rolled around and your resolution is to lose the weight you gained while you were failing at your 2008 resolution.
Then there is the good ol’ “I’m going to study and get straight A’s this semester” resolution. These are for the people who forgot they made the same resolution in August for the fall semester and failed.
Oh well, keep on aiming high folks, and have a happy New Year!
