year in review

It's that time, when everyone celebrates a new cycle of the calendar and takes time to reflect upon a slice of time and all the events of various significance within that slice that they took part in. For me, 2012 was not by any measure an insignificant year, and I feel that a blog post summarizing the year warrants writing.

The year began with an introduction to a new community and a new interest. This alone revitalized my life when I was reaching a status quo that needed to be broken. This granted me new friendships and new past-times. Through this new community, I was introduced to other things such as, most importantly, Dota 2, a continuation of the story of an originally unassuming custom map in Warcraft III, which had enough unique appeal and innovation to herald a new genre and kind of competitive gaming.

I've also experienced a great deal of generosity, which reached its peak towards the end with the new PC from my dear friend Kasia. No amount of gratitude is enough - all I can offer in return is repayment in friendship and a passing on of that generosity (which I am struggling with currently - I meant to ship my previous PC to a friend in 2012, but procrastinated upon it - very guilty over this! First thing to do in 2013). As such, I begin 2013 fully caught up on every little material thing I desired in the past year.

Towards the last months of the past year, I've also rekindled some old friendships, one of which is with my neighbours - including a person who returned to Poland after a long time of studying abroad, and is currently sticking around here.

From negatives, one thing I've been dealing with is a downswing of negativity. Reminiscence on old doubts, regrets and failures has caused me to become reticent in some matters, but very harsh and aggressive in others. All the good I've experienced slipped away from my awareness, as I focused on hiding away and warding others off, afraid to disappoint or accept my disappointment, as others (and myself) failed to meet unreasonable standards I set for them.

I am not one to form strict resolutions for any specific timeframe such as the beginning of a year, but the above reflection is something to keep in mind, the one thing that, if improved upon, will make 2013 a better year than the previous.

Happy New Year - I really hope and believe it will be an improvement for us all.