It's mildly amusing to look over the posts of 2004, if only to notice the dramatic increase in the number of posts made as the year went by, and also the endless amount of pseudo-philosophy which often bordered on nihilism. In the last post I mentioned that I didn't feel like thinking about the ideas the story brought up anymore. I also don't feel like thinking about most, if any, ideas brought up this past year in the blog. Put it down to my mind deciding it needs an extended vacation - I simply cannot gather the energy to start asking seemingly deep and profound questions anymore. In addition, I also get the feeling that I will never be able to conjure up any further attempts at poetry, after reading through some of the previous tripe that I've posted. Perhaps my muse is also on leave, or perhaps I've realized that there was no muse to start off with!

It seems like a very long time ago since I was caught up in the rigmarole of exams and uni work. Around that time, I remember having panic attacks and being unable to sleep without thinking about how I feared failing in a couple of subjects. Now that the dust has settled, I can state that I did in fact pass everything, and, as expected, am left shaking my head at how overdramatic I can be. I wrote something a few days after learning of this "miracle", which I may as well post:

"I promised some unknown figment of my imagination that I would make a post regarding my feared failure in a subject at uni, and since the results are back, here goes.

It turns out that I was being paranoid about failing a couple of subjects. In fact, I did get my lowest mark in uni in one of the subjects, which was to be expected considering how badly I did. However, I managed to somehow pass it, which validates the suspicion that the hordes of students who seemed to appear out of nowhere for the exam did not in fact do all that well (always attend lectures, kids!). The other one, which I made a long and meandering post about, turned out to be a bit of a joke. I ended up getting close to full marks in the internal assessment I was thinking I would get 25% in, which just makes me wonder; was it just paranoia, or was it due to lax marking? Considering how rushed the marking was, I think it was a bit of the latter too. The marker was renowned for strictness earlier in the semester, but I suppose he had a change of heart at the end when he realized that there just wasn't any time to be strict. As a result, I didn't end up failing, but in fact I got one of the better marks this semester. If anyone saw my final mark, and saw that I was actually concerned about failing the subject, I really don't know what they would think. Heck, I myself don't know what to think - what was going on in my head at the time!? What a truly disconcerting experience - I have never experienced such raw, undistilled paranoia about anything like my concern over failing this subject. But in the end, things just went in my favour through some stroke of pure luck that's as good an indication as any that God's in heaven and he's on my side (only joking, gentle reader).

I want to be able to learn from this, and be a little more level-headed when it comes to judging my own performance. It's one think to under-estimate one's performance - that will always be the case with me, and I can deal with that. But under-estimating to this extent, nope, it's just too much. I don't fancy the idea of getting yet more panic-attacks and spending my days and nights in perpetual worry about something as ludicrous as this. Thankfully this trip has helped me get a bit more perspective on things, and made me at least consider changing my outlook on life. I really ought to try and make sure this never happens again.

Ya know, sitting here and typing this up, such things seem like trivialities. But that's always the way it is, I suppose - from the outside, one can easily call most things in life trivial. It's equally easy to get totally caught up in something and forget about the "big picture". Yeah, 'tis verily a cliche, but perhaps life is a cliche. (I see I haven't lost my ability to randomly generate pseudo-philosophical aphorisms) To every thing there is a season, eh? Odds are very, very good that I will in fact get caught up in things which, in hindsight, are trivial and not worth the energy I expend on them."

What's funny is that it seems trivial to even discuss how trivial the matter was; this seems almost obvious now. And, let me add, almost unworthy of receiving any attention, because it is now utterly out of mind. I'm not the sort who's prone to making new year's resolutions, but for this year, I think that if I manage to get through without any more nonsense like the fear of failing in both semesters, it will be a step in the right direction.

Something which always leaves me in awe is tracing how far my musical tastes progress in a year. I think that at the start of this year, I was still unaware of many things. The album second only to Sgt. Pepper in the split of people who chant that it's the greatest album ever and those who call it overrated trash (The Velvet Underground & Nico), and the immortal declaration therein ("I feel just like Jesus' son"). Dark-ballads, gorgeous pop, and manic poetry by a controversial group facing a serious backlash in these modern times, with perhaps some merit (The Doors and Strange Days). The best pop album no-one's ever heard, the product of one-half of the greatest songwriting duo in rock (McCartney's Ram). And, songwise, Tom Waits' "Martha", which may just be the most beautiful piano ballad I've heard in a long time. Yeah, it's been quite an interesting year for my musical tastebuds, and I look forward to reading this post sometime next year to see just how far things have gone then.