2008.

It's Thursday night. There are just three more days until the start of the new term. I'm sitting on the couch watching Brenda play Guitar Hero. I got back an hour ago from potluck dinner and Taboo-playing at a Zion gifties reunion, after dropping Michelle off at the subway station. My girlfriends and I are going to her place tomorrow to have pizza and watch movies. And I'm gonna meet with Hannah to catch up.
I'm not really sure I'm ready for school to start again, but I really can't complain about this holiday. Two-and-a-half weeks sure beats the ten days of holiday I got last year. I think the best word to describe the break, and how I feel about my life right now, is "rich".
There's the literal context of material affluence. There's no other season like Christmas, when presents abound, to make one reflect on one's material wealth. Especially this year: I got a new [composite!] hockey stick, and snowboarding gear; not inexpensive sports to take up by any means.
But what makes life really rich is the people in it.
I spent a couple of days of the holiday back at Evergreen. Some of the youth are doing a lot worse; some, a lot better. It was a good way to ground myself, and remind myself of the real issues that go on in the world. I had dinner with my summer team coworkers, full of scintillating conversation about family relationships, vegetarianism, and sweatshops.
I caught up with a lot of my high school friends. With most of them graduating this year, it's a marvel to think of all the great things in store for them - relocation, starting jobs, traveling. And there's something very special about the people you spent your prepubescent and adolescent years with, the ones who your parents recognized because they helped to drive them around when you were all too young to have licenses, the ones who often irritated you but you learned to be friends with anyway because you had all the same classes together and now you can't live without them... and so forth.
I spent time with my family. I went snowboarding with my sister and cousin, had lunches and good car-time conversations with my mum, and loafed around at home at nighttime with my family, watching TV or playing Wii together. It makes me sad that I spent almost a year trying to detach myself from them, that for a time I thought that my parents were anything other than entirely loving and supportive.
I have a lot of good friends and good times to look forward to this term. To name just a few, the Corneal Cup is next week, lift tickets for Chicopee are 3 for $50, and I'll start learning clinical techniques soon.
Here's to another year of love and laughter, and richness.