2008 In Review

2008 in Review

My initial sentiments on the year 2008, the year of the Rat, are those of its namesake: small, mostly wretched, and unpleasant. I have experienced much loss this year, with only little gain. There was some joy, but much pain. Friends were gained, but, I fear, more lost. Now, without further ado, the roller-coaster ride that was 2008:

My job saw its set of ups and downs: Though my teaching style and ability has improved, this being my second year teaching, my job remains in jeopardy due to budget cuts in education. This dismal state of uncertainty has left many a negative teacher and has certainly impeded my joy in the classroom and at school in general around my coworkers. Additionally, at the end of my first year of teaching, I become enmeshed in a scandal that pitted two friends of mine against each other and sent my once peaceful work environment into a frenzied mire of “he said/she said” nonsense.

My family has seen its set of ups and downs: My sister graduated from college in June, the same month my cousin got married in probably the best wedding I will ever go to (other than my own, let’s hope). This was only days before our families experienced their most-harrowing times: the deaths of my uncle’s father (his family is so close to mine that we all go on vacations together) and my own grandmother, who at 92 represented the matriarchal glue that my family was so used to seeing and feeling at all events and in everyday life. Now six months after this grim period, we are still facing sorrow and distress: my father lost his job in November, with little hope in plain sight; my 11-year-old faithful golden retriever is dying of cancer; and my 92-year-old heart-ached grandfather is also slowly deteriorating. And yet, what of these sentiments will I have to endure in 2009? Was there any good from this year that will endure into the next?

There was a time this year of complete joy and unfettered happiness for me. In July, I embarked on the greatest trip of my life, driving across the United States. The 5,178 miles traveled represented a road never taken, places my foot never previously stepped, but that now have traces of my prints and I of theirs. It was a phenomenal departure from the despondency of life as I knew it, and I fear that I need another departure to get me back into the swing of things.

Another high point of the year, which I was not directly involved in, was the election of a candidate for President whose values and beliefs I too believed in. Barack Obama’s campaign was founded on the two words “change” and “hope,” and no doubt the 2008 election year will go down in history bearing those two words. However, let’s look into them a little further. Change. 2008 was a year of change; however, for me it was depressing and discouraging, an unwanted change, one for the worse. Hope. 2009 can be the year of hope, that there are better times ahead, that all is not lost, and that a saying in one of the best movies of the year—The Dark Knight—is true: “the night is darkest before dawn.” I hope that in 2009, a new day will dawn for me and my family that will entail happiness, joy, and good, something to raise the spirit before it plummets further into depression, discouragement, and eventual darkness. Let’s hope the year of the ox has the strength to bring about that much-needed spiritual uprising.