2002-12-31 - 6:55 a.m.
This should be my last entry of the year. In a few minutes, I'm heading out to rent a car and then drive to New Jersey for a new year's eve party. I hope that I can be awake enough. I thought my sleep schedule had recovered, since I didn't have a nap during the day since Friday. But I've still been averaging only about 5 hours of sleep a night, so around 8pm yesterday I finally collapsed only to wake up at 2. Maybe I can sleep in the car in the afternoon.
I've been thinking over the past couple of weeks about this past year. Trying to keep a positive outlook, I decided to try to name the things I liked best about the year. But everything that I could think of was related to travel. Visiting friends in Canada, sailing in Georgian Bay, my motorcycle trip around CA/NV, going to Australia... They were all nice things, but they all seemed like a means of escape...
I was pretty depressed for most of 2002. It's hard to say exactly why. Causality is very nebulous with depression -- was I depressed because of not much progress in my research, or is it the other way around? I found a lot of reasons to be depressed, or perhaps some of them found me. Going out of town for a while felt like a reprieve. So I scheduled more and more time away from home as the year progressed, culminating with this near-two-month absence that is coming to an end. And even now, I'm still a little anxious about getting back home and facing my "real life" and whatever than entails. But I do want to go home.
Anyway, it's time to get all my stuff together and head out. And hope that next year will be better than the last...
end and beginning - 2003-03-04
the dogs must be crazy - 2003-03-03
strange thoughts on a train - 2003-02-28
movie madness - 2003-02-26
sense of community - 2003-02-25