This may be a tired cliche, but it remains true. Today is the first day of the rest of our lives. Of my life, at least.
It's a day as ordinary as can be -- Tuesday 25 March 2008. The vernal equinox has passed. The March full moon aka the Worm Moon has passed. The Lenten season has passed (although I did try to time this blog for Easter Sunday). There is no numerical signicance or symmetry to 25-03-2008, like there is in the dates 01-01-2000 or 08-08-08, for example.
But I choose this day to end my series of blogs (Vernal equinox glimpses...) with Countdown Zero. I want to share with you my near-future glimpses of what 2008 will bring to my life. These glimpses are not yet real-life events or sure-fire eventualities. But they are not mere vague hopes, either, because I've been quietly working for them to turn into reality. If not this year, then next year.
So here is my list of the things that I'm doing my best to happen in 2008 extending to 2009.
- Enter a work-study program in an American, or European, or East Asian university, and visit friends and relatives and do some traveling and personal research while there.
- Set up a new website that will show some signs of modest success. (Actually, revive an old website that I allowed to hibernate.)
- Do some long-distance biking or backpacking across at least a few national borders, as part of my preparations for a more ambitious once-in-a-lifetime project (which Mobil knows about).
- Finish writing a book. Get myself a publisher. (I'm already in contact with two.)
- See (and probably help) Sophie achieve her own dream of setting up and running a special school for children with special needs. And finally see my Silver Girl sail on high, when her time comes to shine.
These are my glimpses for 2008 and beyond. Tall order? Maybe. But then again, maybe not. It isn't as if I planned this on the fly, a spur-of-the-moment wild idea. I have blueprints. Difficult? To paraphrase an inscription that I quoted in a blog I wrote last year: "Difficult things I do at once. The impossible takes a bit longer."
My words might prove to be, in the long run, mere bravado. Sometimes they are. But I've never been so dead serious as now.
There have been some false starts, yes. Late last year, for example, a series of windfall opportunities buoyed up my plans, and I shared some of my enthusiasm in a blog about parallel worlds. Alas, it was to be a short-lived advance. It was something I couldn't sustain. But it's an advance nonetheless. And this year I will build up on it and be on my way. Again, wish me the best of luck.
If you have your own glimpses to 2008 and beyond, my friends, you are more than welcome to share them here. I love listening to wild dreams and impossible schemes.
