uj ev 2006

in some few hours, i will celebrate the 6th anniversary of my sleeping through the grand "millennium new years". hehe. or perhaps 2001 was the real millennium, but what i mean to say is tonight is new years eve! p,m,j and i are back in budapest following a pretty decent week in mezoszemere, though it was by no means an easy trip. i can only speak for myself, but i feel that my view of mezoszemere is quickly changing. for much of my life it has been a bit of a utopia, you know. i still love going there, but the truth is that i am far too overemotional to deal with so much sickness and contemplations of elderliness. even my wonderful dog morzsi is not allowed to grow older without "oooh poor morzsi...he doesn't hear anymore...he's old now too...please don't die before me now, little kutya...etc, etc." that all doesn't make me so happy. i just feed him szaloncukor and lots of other things that make him happy. anyway though, being sad is no way to ring in the new year, so i will try to relate happier things...
today i finished reading anna karenina. i've been slowly reading it for about two months now, but only in the last 10 days have i really had time to immerse myself and read to my hearts content. i really enjoyed the ending, and the moral of happiness. poor anna though, really. haha i get emotionally involved in books, its sort of funny. it can be stressful!
i have much to be thankful for, as i look back on 2005: general success (although in the words of the horse in animal farm "i will work harder") at bowdoin, healthy p,m, and sister, great adventures in various parts of the world - from szemere to the bay of funday and all the way home to seattle, happiness in the success of my friends, a very different perspective on college tuition thanks to syntagma and my great-grandfather's foresight,the opportunity to keep correspondence with friends all through the world, studying, climbing mountains, watching lions...oy. i am amazed by my friends! i am thankful that we got to spend karacsonyt with nagymama, horvath iren, and misi bacsi. i do not take it for granted, and i know things will change. anyway, not that i think lower of all the rest that i'm thankful for, but i'll stop now. :) i'm excited for 2006 - another semester at bowdoin, iceland over break with p&m, brunswick in the summer (if all goes well) lots more bowdoin nerdyness, driving (what??? a chen driving???) adventures with friends...and if all goes well, the list continues.
the picture is a pseudo-quasi (john :-P) tribute to anna. it's the opera house in budapest. so beautiful. they always have a big new years celebration. i think i'll either be sleeping, or almost sleeping. who stays up till midnight anyway? that was so 2005. on that note a few of my many resolutions:
1. to learn to accept being wrong (particularly with mama) more openly
2. to read 12 books from my ever-growing list of books to read (papa suggested that i buy them all and send them to school... hmm... trying to imagine how i'd fit in my room after that one!)
3. to be more like j (n.b. but not in all ways... only in the good ways... and in this way, there's no question of the shadow-living that people like to place on little sisters, but rather the recognition that emulating people who are successful in ways you admire can't be all bad.)
4. *********gpa (imagine whatever you'd like there.) teehee.
5. a great resolution: to sleep more. or more generally, to consider more thoroughly how what i do/don't do affects me... oy vey.
6. to drink more tea.
is it sad that i am severely censuring myself right now? hmm. i just realized that i'd persuaded myself not to write one because of the fear of what others might interpret it as. on that note...
7. a wonderfully overwhelming, and perhaps impossible resolution to stop fearing things that are unfounded...stressing about things i can't fix...worrying about how others interpret things. aaah.

i love you. i wish you the most WONDERFUL, HEALTHY, HAPPY, SUCCESSFUL, SUSTAINABLE, EMOTIONALLY FULFILLING, HUG-FILLED, CONTENTED, new year. it is fitting i think that levin (or tolstoy rather) left me contemplating happiness on new years eve, so that will be my continual quest for 2006 and hopefully beyond. i leave this way-too-long-little-blog with a favorite quote of mine from our dear angel clarence (it's a wonderful life)...

"Remember George: No man is a failure who has friends."