Happy New Year and the year in review

Due to our society's completely arbitrary decision to nominate the 1st of January as being the first day of a new year, we are now in 2007 (another arbitrary number). In light of this, Happy New Year to all those who can be bothered reading my blog.

Well, now for the second part of this entry, which could be quite long and wordy, depending on how I feel as I type.

The year in review:
I was in Gliwice, Poland for New Year's Day last year, with a lot of snow and it was very cold. The snow fell in huge amounts for a couple of days either side of the 1st of January, which was a complete change from the New Years that I'd had previously. I'm not normally a fan of fireworks, believing that, for the most part, if you've seen one, you've seen them all, but they were quite pretty in Poland because of the contrast between the bright fireworks and the drab gray of the buildings and sky at that time of year. I didn't travel much in the early part of the year in Poland, as I was saving money and also working long hours in split shifts, which are a real pain in the arse. My only foray into other places was to a town called Bielsko-Biała, where I visited Nicola for a few days.

In March, I left Poland and flew to France where I went to Paris, Lyon, Grenoble and Marseilles. While there, I visited Julien, Amelie and Thomas, three former exchange students. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in France to the point of vowing to return one day for a longer term stay.

I returned to Australia at the end of March (actually on my mother's birthday) and I've been here since then. I haven't travelled much since my return, with Noosa and Banora Point being the furthest towns north and south of Brisbane to be graced by my presence. This lack of travel is something that I plan to remedy in 2007.

In April, Angie and Michael got married (to each other) but haven't yet produced any spawn. They have purchased a house, which means they have a mortgage. The first four letters of that word, mort, mean dead in French. This is appropriate because, with current property prices and interest rates, most people will be "mort" before their mortgage. With any luck, and some sensible budgetting, this fate might not befall the couple who, until they read those last two sentences, were probably quite happy.

Pepsi had a birthday in June, which is an annual event for her.

In late July, or perhaps early August, I started work at Global Village Brisbane, an English language school for foreign students. I enjoy the work, I like most of the students (there will always be a handful at any school who are little shits), and the rate of pay is good. The only downside is that the number of hours isn't particularly high, which means that I don't get that nice pay rate for the number of hours that I'd like. I am actually working as much as I can at the school, in light of its hours of operation, so it's not possible to obtain more hours there.

In December, like many other people around the world, I celebrated the feast day of St. Santa. Some people would call this 'Christmas' but the festival on the 25th of December has about as much relevance to Christianity as Easter. I celebrated in the usual way by worshipping pagan idols (the tree, Santa, etc) and eating yummy food.

The last day of 2006 saw me at a party at Ben's house. It was originally planned for Rowan's house but was moved. It was a good party, and a worth way to welcome the, as mentioned above, completely arbitrary start to 2007.

Now, have any of you bothered to read this far?