It's really so much clearer to me now - the holidays we've grown up programmed to love really don't have much meaning behind them. Christmas supposedly celebrates the birth of Christ, but our family and friends arn't religious, so what was all that big deal behind it? New Year's Day heralds the beginning of a new year, but it's really just another day. It's people's obsession with categorizing everything that really invented time, dates and calendars. We call ourselves intellectually advanced, and here we are, still primitively rejoicing over every rotation the Earth makes around the Sun. Innit very much like how they used to perform rituals during eclipses to ward away the Celestial Dog that was swallowing the Sun? You'd think a dog blessed with a heavenly ancestry would know better than to gulp down a big ball of fire.
The fact of the matter is, holidays are meaningless. It is a human concept, not a magical day, so it is the people you get to celebrate it with that make it special. I spent Christmas alone and New Year's Eve under the covers counting down on BBM with Jiahui (she was not in bed with me, she was in Singapore, just so we're very clear on this), and I came to the freeing realization that these festivals people get so hung up over - it's just another day. Nothing very Christmasy happens when you're alone. Reindeer droppings won't fall on your head, Santa doesn't commit breaking and entering on the pretense of giving you presents, and you don't magically grow wiser at the strike of twelve on New Year's.
So here we are, at the turn of the new year. And according to Mayan-worshipers, the final peaceful year we have before the complete destruction of the world, so tastefully portrayed in the movie 2012. I'm going on record to say that I don't believe in all that bullshit, but I am very excited to see how paranoid people are going to get. I have never been too good at keeping any New Year's Resolutions, seeing how "I resolve not to be a whoring slut" always gets broken within 24 hours of making that resolution. So this year, I've decided that resolutions should be kept simple and easily achievable. As a result, this year, my New Year's Resolution is to continue to be devastatingly handsome and awesome. Done.
Everyone has their amazing NYE stories, I'm sure. And let me just say now that I do not want to hear about it. No, I don't wanna hear how you got 'shitfaced, dude', throwing up in the toilet with a cross-dresser holding back your hair while rented-strippers do a harmonized version of Auld Lang Syne with their hoohoos. Actually, if your NYE was anything remotely like that, I do wanna hear about it. But no, everyone has their version of basically the same story, and insist on telling their variation one after another, as if there are that many ways to chug eggnog with your great-uncle Walter. To me, acceptable ways to start a NYE story include 'I adopted the only obese, middle-aged Zimbabwean ', 'I'm Clarissa now, not Clarence' and 'I was stuck in an airport due to heavy fog'. Anything else, just save it.
Coincidentally, I was stuck in an airport due to heavy fog. I was due to fly from Madison to Chicago, and then transfer to St Louis to spend Christmas Eve with the Songs (specifically why, I'm not sure, as I ended up spending the night in bed recovering from the strain of the messed up flights.). My flight was supposed to be at around 2pm, but due to the heavy fog, the planes wouldn't even fly in from Chicago. It wasn't until around 4pm that the pilot finally had the balls to fly my plane in. Thankfully, I didn't miss my connecting flight as the entire Midwest was having severe weather conditions. The place I was flying to - St Louis - had a devastating tornado that ripped through a street not too far from the Song's place. I say 'thankfully' (not because I'm a sadist and enjoys watching people's roofs get torn off) because all the flights were delayed, so even though I was late, I was able to make it onto the connecting flight with plenty of time to spare. Just wish I had known that before I sprinted wildly around the Chicago airport screaming about the bleeping fog.
As far as I'm concerned, St Louis only deserves one visit. In fact, half a visit is plenty. The Songs are the most amazing and nice people (and I'm not just saying this because I have a constant fear that anyone I mention in my blog is gonna put a price on my head), but boy is St Louis empty. There's that St Louis arch that looks way too flimsy to be climbing up and down and messing around with, and to make things worse, you go up in a 4 feet high capsule that uncomfortably fits five. It goes up for an agonizing four-rickety-and-grindingly-slow minutes, after which you enter the top portion of the arch. It has 16 super thin windows, not nearly enough to make me feel comfortable in that restricted space. I've never been the claustrophobic type, but that tiny space with the limited windows, including all the people cramped in, gave me a creepy tinge of suffocating oppression, the kind I haven't felt since leaving the Communist State of Jurong Junior College. I took an obligatory and quick view out of the two sides of the arch, earned my bragging rights, and eagerly headed towards back towards the minuscule capsules.
Exactly 24 hours after leaving St Louis for Madison, I was once again back on the plane heading towards Reno, Nevada. Another family my parents were good friends with lives out there, and I was eager to expand my resume of states visited. The uncle promised that I would be brought skiing, which left me very confused. I thought that Nevada was a desert, where do they get enough snow for skiing? Apparently it does indeed snow on the mountains surrounding Reno, and skiing's a very big thing over there. Any senior citizen can whizz by on skis faster than you can say 'you're gonna break your hip!'. I had never gone skiing before, but if my experience with ice-skating had taught me anything, it was that babies born in Wisconsin are magically blessed at birth by ski-suit-wearing gay fairies to be amazing at winter sports.
After a lesson with my Australian ski instructor, I could comfortably ski down the student's slope. More importantly, I could comfortably slow down and stop on the slope. I suspect I could have learned more from the instructor, but most of the time I was distracted by the most awesome Australian accent. How does he convey his meaning to anyone, if everyone else are as captivated as I am by Aussie-speak. He could be muttering gibberish for all I cared, as long as he does it in the amusing accent. Oh I've got it! They sound exactly like English-Texan hybrids. ~Love~ it. (That was supposed to be read in that falsetto, high-pitched, self assured way.)
The student hill soon got too boring for me. It was extremely short and, I suspect, built for grannies who've just had hip-replacement surgeries. I was ready to take on the green-level slope, the one my instructor said I was definitely ready for. Or at least that's what I think he said, I was still very tickled by the accent. And if my instructor from the Land of the Emus think I'm ready, I'm not going to wait another minute. I confidently and cumbersomely make my way towards the ski-lift that was going to bring me up to the basic-level hill. I should probably have taken off the skis, carried them to the lift and then put it on, but the praise from Kangaroo-Lord was getting to my head and I wasn't thinking clearly at all. By the time I got to the lift I was sweating and panting from pushing my way up with my ski-poles. Why they would have an uphill slope to the lift, I'd never know. I'd also like to take this time to apologize to the toddlers' faces I smacked with my ski-poles. Hey, it's not my fault you're still that short.
My confidence began dwindling as I surveyed the hill while going up on the lift. There were a few slopes in between that were a little steep, and as I watched some snowboarders and skiiers roll down the hill, I began wondering whatever possessed me to think I was ready for this. By the time I reached the top I was almost ready to stay on the lift and take a journey back downhill. Trying to remember eveything the instructor had said, I performed an expertly maneuvered move off the lift. Now for the actual slope. My heart raced as I stared down the snowy white (actually yellow, cause I was wearing ski-goggles) hill I was sure was gonna claim my life. I say a little prayer to Aretha, gulped once, and launched myself towards the slope. I confidently zoomed towards the opposite side, flipped, and landed on my back within seconds. I cursed the slopes, cursed the damned liar of an instructor, cursed Reno and cursed the heavens that poured this ungodly snow on this goddamned slope.
I pushed myself up and started back down the slope. To my utter surprise, I actually began doing something looking surprisingly like skiing. I was making the zip-zag turns down-slope, remembered the instructor's words about weight distribution and feet maneuvers, managed to avoid the dangerous, unpredictable snowboarders, and made it to the end with only 2 more tumbles (including one spectacular one that involved losing a ski). The second time down, I got through it without falling once. Was this possible? Within four hours I had transformed myself from a ski-virgin to someone who just screwed (or at least dry humped) the brains out of the baby-slope. I was unduly proud of myself, and promptly used my Blackberry to change my Facebook display picture to one of me skiing. The world, all 123 other occupants, needed to share in this delightful development.
Reno, of course, is mainly famous for being a mini-Las Vegas. Casinos peppered the downtown, with bright flights sleazily flashing their names. We took a look inside, to show me the inside of a casino. I was expecting something out of Ocean's Eleven - glamorous, filled to the brim with desperadoes and fancy millionaires being pampered by the smartly dressed staff, with inconspicuous managers surveying everyone with the eye of a hawk. What had greeted me instead was a scene of utter silence. There were perhaps fewer than five people, all senior citizens, lifelessly feeding coins to the slot machine. Nothing reflects the dwindling economy better than a casino - the uncle says that just a few years ago, the place was completely full, and now its only a ghost of what the place used to be. No one has any money left to spend on necessities, much less gamble away. The place was fully lit up, which was perhaps what made it look so sad. Every machine was eagerly waiting for someone to use it and fulfill its money-sucking, soul-depraving destiny, but no one was gullible or generous enough anymore.
You know how people get so annoying about having seen famous landmarks? 'Oh, I was on the Golden Gate Bridge, it was so amazing, but I don't get why it was red though..." Big deal, you saw it, come brag to me about it if you built it. But yeah, I'm going to annoyingly do exactly that. San Francisco lies a 4hr drive from Reno, and we drove there on Saturday or Sunday (I've been drinking and I can't remember which), and I was just an absolute pest about seeing the Golden Gate Bridge. We crossed a reddish bridge that looks exactly like the GGB (that's industry-speak for Golden Gate Bridge, dawg), and I just going berserk about it before I was told it was just an imposter, built to look like the real thing. Damn, and just when I was going to start singing God Bless America.
We came before the real thing after driving past the piers. I would say that it was absolutely breathtaking, but that would still be selling it short. It was like seeing a celebrity in the flesh - you'd seen pictures, videos, likenesses, on key-chains, postcards, screen-savers, their faces superimposed on random naked bodies, wallpapers, everything, but you still don't really believe it's something real. And there it was, the most famous bridge in the world (apart from the structurally questionable London Bridge that always seems to be falling down), majestically stretching from coast to coast in all its non-golden glory. I squinted to see if Leo or Paige from Charmed was at the top questioning the Elders, but I suspect the heavy fog was blocking the shimmering blue orbs from view.
And now, here I am, back in Madison after 4 days in St Louis and 10 in Reno. Perhaps the aura of the Shrine of the Overachieving (inside story) rubbed off on me, but I am quite excited to begin the new semester. Some French to break into Celine's full catalog, some Criminal Justice to build the base for the crowning glory of Criminology, and some Theater just to fulfill the stereotype. *Somebody* has to do it.
And now for the real New Year's Resolutions: Bs for everything, A for Theater. Lord (my Lord is the Reduced Fat Very Berry Coffee Cake from Starbucks, only $2.50) knows I need this.
So, fellow college students, have a wonderfully fucked up new year so I can freeload my success off your failure. Don't be selfish, you'd do this one little thing for me, won't you?
