After Christmas

It seems like everyone is writing down “things that happened in 2007” or making yet another count down list or, horror, making New Years resolutions.

I got reminded about all this yesterday when eating a fabulous British Christmas turkey dinner with some American ‘stuffin muffins’. After saying grace, which at the time felt strangely appropriate and didn’t stress me at all, I got the question if I could recollect the best moment of 2007, or rather (as I actually think the question was) what was the single moment where I felt most thankful for?! I said I couldn’t pinpoint one…. Thought about it and then three things popped up. (It’s not that important what is was exactly, just that one involved my newfound friends, one my training regime and then the most personal one so far.)

Then we moved into “what would we do differently next year” aka “what would you try and make a promise of changing” aka “new years resolution”. I ended up with a few of them… although, to be fair, I think they all resemble each other. This said, I don’t make new years resolutions but rather look at it as a good way of counting my blessings and look back and see if I truly like my behaviour, my path of life or however I would put it without sounding too bombastic or pretentious.

So, needless to say it all comes down to a simple little thing. Stop worrying so much about the future. Stop worrying so much about what people think. Stop worrying about what the result of the experiment will be. Stop… well, I guess the picture is fairly clear?

Let’s just hope that I can do this, which I have good hopes on to be truthful. After all, practice makes perfect!

For personal reasons it is with mixed feelings I will go back to my mother country soon. I really would like to be going on a real vacation rather than to go ‘home’ and ‘fix things’ and although I really like to visit my family and friends it is with mixed feelings I realize that this is my only vacation for this year. Kind of anyway…

and at the moment I am dead tired and would really like a week off from work, either throwing myself down a hill with skis or walking on the beach on some Caribbean island. I guess I will just have to make more “weekend trips” next year and really work on making them happen.

Although, of course, I will get less money from work seeing that my status is shifted from “non-residential alien” to “residential alien”, which in short means that I will now pay social security taxes… and that will of course decrease the amount I get after the taxes are withdrawn. Well, I am sure it will all be fine after the initial shock of getting like 250 dollars less a month although, I have to be honest I say that I don’t really know how much it will be. Let’s see when January is over?!

All this of course is of non importance seeing that it is just to stop me from fretting over work or packing my things. The article is just hanging in midair, my PI and I haven’t talked, the bacteria will hopefully behave today and I just really want to have a sleep-in Boxing day.

Then I stop whining and think about the nice Christmas I had with good friends although I was on the other side of the world from my family and older friends. I got texts and phone calls and even some pressies via mail and all of them reminded this somewhat daft post doc what really matters in the world and even if it feels like it is getting publications in Nature or Science (again, what I would do for that to happen?! Don’t ask… it is still PG-13 in here… ;) ) but rather to try and be thankful for what we have today and that we are alive and have fruitful friendships and just trying to be a good friend. (And sure, having a publication or four is still necessary for work but again, it has to be a balance.)

And now it is time to stop. All sappy and emotional…. But after all, it is Christmas time!

Happy New Year!