C'est la Vie

Well, well, well. Another year has ended and a new one's just begun. More than any other year, I bid goodbye to 2008 with mixed feelings. It has not been an easy year for me personally. There were health problems, myriad deadlines to meet, difficulties at the workplace and in personal relationships, and towards the end, the loss of a beloved aunt who was a widow, and childless, and therefore, quite close to us.On the upside, I finally completed my doctoral dissertation, something that had begun to take on the proportions of a nightmare; I had friends and family to help me make it through the difficult times, I met and formed bonds with people who were special in their own ways, and I finally came to terms with some harsh realities, which, though hard to swallow at first, at least served to dispel any illusions I may have nurtured. All in all, the positives and the negatives balanced each other out, as they tend to do. C'est la vie.

I received this text message at New Year's, and despite the silly rhyming, I quite like it,so I'm reproducing it here as a wish to all my online friends:
The year has gone, but made us strong,
The path was long but we walked with a song,
There were fears and tears,
But we also had reasons for cheers,
Wishing you happy memories of the last year,
And a great beginning of the next year - 2009!


As far back as I can remember, my sister would welcome the New Year every year with Abba's song, "Happy New Year". In more recent times, the now disbanded A*Teens did a cover of it. Here are the lyrics, courtesy www.azlyrics.com
Happy New Year
No more champagne
And the fireworks are through
Here we are, me and you
Feeling lost and feeling blue
It's the end of the party
And the morning seems so grey
So unlike yesterday
Now's the time for us to say...

Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I

Sometimes I see
How the brave new world arrives
And I see how it thrives
In the ashes of our lives
Oh yes, man is a fool
And he thinks he'll be okay
Dragging on, feet of clay
Never knowing he's astray
Keeps on going anyway...


Seems to me now
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor
It's the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what we'll find
What lies waiting down the line
In the end of eighty-nine... [2009]

And here is the video. Hope you enjoy the song as much as I always do.



Once again, here are my best wishes for you for the New Year. May you be richly blessed, and may you be a blessing to others too.