New Years' Resolutions and Other Bullshit

This is not actually Alexis, by the way, though such is already painfully obvious to all. I can only wish I had such a nice figure.

Happy New Year, Feliz  Ano Nuevo, Bonne Annee, Gong Hay Fat Choy, Gong Zi Fa Cai, or however you most like to say or hear it. 

New Year's resolutions are something that I consider a waste of time. For the most part, if a person needs to change something about himself or herself, what is the point of waiting until the next January 1 to begin to address it? Do it now! Perhaps a modification in a person's financial practices is considered, such as making a decision to be more careful and systematic in saving receipts. Maybe the idea occurs to a person too late in a given calendar year for it to make an appreciable difference in that year, but making the change would create a tangible benefit if it were done for an entire year or at least for the better part of a year. A rationale for postponing the change until the onset of the next calendar year might then conceivably make sense. Otherwise it's an exercise in absurdity.  If a change is important enough to make, anyone who is sufficiently committed to make whatever change has been proposed after January 1 would do so if he or she decided to immediately [or very next day at the absolute latest] effect the change. 

I had a very quiet New Year's Eve / New Year celebration. I spent it at my pseudo-relatives' condo in the mountains of Utah. My original plan had been to spend the days between Christmas and New Year's Day in the Beehive State, but plans changed for all of my prospective travel companions. I didn't want to go there all by myself Then my aunt called and said their family was  chartering a flight for a three-day trip to Utah. I chose to go with them. Once there, I managed to squeeze about twenty hours of skiing and snowboarding into three days. The time there was an almost perfect interval -- just enough time on the slopes to have made the plane trip worth my while, and then as I was beginning to feel most fortunate that I normally live in parts of California that have mild climates, it was time to board the plane again and to return to California.

I seriously considered enrolling in a medical school in a location further north and with harsher winters even than those typically experienced in most parts of Utah. Think The Great White North if you need more specifics to create a picture in your mind. In what was probably a fortunate turn of events for me, the day I flew there for the interview, the area was hit with a winter storm so harsh that it could have stranded me there for a week. as I'm reading this back to myself, it hardly sounds like serendipity, except for two reasons:1) a professor with whom I was interviewing absolutely had to make it to Philadelphia within two days and was driving herself there in a four-wheel drive, and generously offered me a ride so that I would be able to catch a flight from an airport that wasn't closed due to inclement weather; and 2) I saw just enough of winter weather to realize that moving there all by myself and committing to live in it for however many days each year that Mother Nature chose to send it for the next four years might not be the wisest course of action I could take. I still may choose to complete my one-year internship in a place with real winters -- perhaps even at or near the virtually Siberian facility where I interviewed -- but I'm not committing to any more than a single year in such a location.

My old on-again/off-again flame Jared was there. The flame never burned all that brightly to be perfectly honest, but it's still at least flickering. Who the hell knows where that relationship will end up? Only time will tell. 

School resumes for me on Monday. Matthew and I will make the return drive very late on Sunday. If a worst-case scenario were to materialize and we were to be stuck in traffic for ten straight hours and not make it back in time for class Monday morning, the professors and our advisers would be less than thrilled with us, but it wouldn't have any long-term ramifications where either of us are concerned. When we were new to the program, we had to be extra cautious about such things, as we will again need to be once we begin clinical rotations. For now, we're known not to be flakes and can each afford a minor screw-up or two.

I have less than thirty-three hours in which to successfully transition from my vacation mode persona of "merry sunshine Alexis" back to my school alter ego of Cutthroat Bitch. I'll probably make it if I begin the transition as soon as I get into my car for the return trip. Matthew and I will be driving separately, so he won't care.

Ski resorts in France, and, for that matter, in most of Europe,  know how to ring in the new year with elan. It wasn't quite so exciting where I was.