2012 is a write-off

(See, I wrote the original copy of this in the afternoon, then accidentally deleted it. Given that I was writing about how badly the year had gone and is ending, that was like having a bird take a dump on your head while you're trying to scrape dog poo off your shoe using the kerb. It feels somewhat farcical, rewriting something like that, like diluted kopi peng. But going to do it anyway, because I want to remember this and also, to unlock the blog again.)

In accounting, a write-up occurs as the result of an asset's loss in value. As an accounting student (don't ask), I could never quite grasp the existence of such a balance sheet item. It seemed to me a convenient dumping ground for bad decisions and unfortunate circumstances. Perhaps that's why I was such a lousy accounting student. To this day, I have no idea what was going on in those classes and creative accounting remains a dirty phrase to me, always said with a smirk and imagined quote marks.

(I did, however, enjoy grossly-inconsequential-to-grades subjects like my opera elective, where we studied things like Puccini's Turandot in some detail.)

But yes, this year. It's as if all the good things that took place this year have been wiped off and I'm back to square one, except it's not actually square one, since time has passed and age triumphs once again with another +1.

That said, I'm just going to chuck 2012 into that accounting black hole and be done with it.

Not in the mood for positives so I shall just end with something I read/realised the other day.

In Sara Wheeler's The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle, she wrote something about how earth is a continuum and human beings, extremely insignificant (I paraphrase very liberally from memory). I constantly think about how in the grand scheme of the universe, we are close to nothing. But it only struck me then, when I read that, that earth will live on, whether it sustains human life or not. The only thing we are capable of annihilating with our negligence is ourselves. 

That made me feel so much better. I shall no longer have to remind people not to waste food or accept unnecessary plastic bags.