COLUMN: New Year’s Revolutions
Once again, it is the new year. Maybe I’m crazy, but it seems like this whole New Year’s Day thing is practically an annual occurrence. I’ve been told there may be some significance to that, but I’m skeptical. Yet some students out there, many of whom are reading this article at this very second, are so out of touch with reality that they aren’t even aware 2002 has passed. Let me assure those of you who didn’t know:
Yes, it really has happened — we are currently in the year 2030, or however that number sequence goes (you will note that I am not a math major). Some of those students are not even aware Christmas has passed, and those same students are now realizing why their parents left such a bitter and hate-filled message on their answering machine.
And then there are those students who haven’t even realized that finals from the last semester are over. Those same students are right now dropping this newspaper, leaving their classrooms, and going to see if there are still career opportunities left for them at the local fast-food restaurants.
But (assuming everyone now knows that the new year has arrived), what does the new year mean to us as students? First of all, it means all the food in your refrigerator that had already expired three years ago, has now expired four years ago. I don’t claim to know why, but that is what my math-major cousin told me. It also means your beat-up, no-good car is now worth about 40 percent of what it was a week and a half ago. And, of course, it always means this is the time to crank out your New Year’s Revolutions.
By New Year’s Revolutions, I mean, the annual government coups conducted in many of our world’s unstable third-world countries. In order to instigate a government overthrow in an unstable third-world country, you need only go to that country, step off of the plane, and calmly light a firecracker — then leave. The ensuing pop from the firecracker will immediately trigger a crossfire between the nation’s army and the competing guerilla revolutionaries.
These revolutions can be especially exciting if you forget the “then leave” step of your plan, since it allows for — hang on just one second. My editor just informed me there is no such thing as the phrase “New Year’s Revolutions.” And had I been better informed, I would be referring to “New Year’s Resolutions.” Well, I still claim my system for starting a revolution in an unstable political environment is flawless, but I suppose I could be willing to allow for some New Year’s Resolutions as well.
A lot of people like to use simple resolutions, such as resolving to not buy one single book for any of their classes or resolving to spend their class time finding out how many different words they can make using only the letters in their professor’s name. These are noble resolutions, but aren’t those things we do anyway? We need to set much higher standards for ourselves. But we have to be careful that we don’t make any resolutions that aren’t realistic.
For example, many people might suggest we resolve to have world peace. A great goal, yes, but it is not very likely to be attained when we live in a world where deodorant costs more than two bucks a stick (this relates back
to an interesting theory of mine where there is a direct connection between world conflict and the price of personal hygiene material — a theory that, unfortunately, this article would not be able to do justice to in such a short time).
So with that being the case, I propose we have a New Year’s Resolution for world war. OK, I suppose that, too, is not a great idea. My own personal policy is that we should never have as many world wars as there are Jurassic Park movies. This is because, as we all know, the sequel is usually never better than the original, and any more after that is simply overkill. Of course, I have to admit that Rocky IV was pretty good, but just remember that you had to get past Rocky III in order to get there.
My suggestions for New Year’s Resolutions, then? I’ve divided them up into several categories for your convenience and, although I wrote them out initially for myself, I think they can all apply to all of you. So here are your conveniently prewritten New Year’s Resolutions in their respective categories.
Education: Find out who these “advisers” are everyone talks about.
Social: Stop threatening to kill everyone you meet.
Economic: Create a new identity so those student loan guys will stop bugging you.
Physical: Watch a video about exercise at least once a month.
Environment: For every animal you make go extinct, create two more to take its place.
Sweater: Wash it every other six months.
Now the last one (besides not being what you might call a “normal” category) may not apply directly to you, but you can feel free to substitute another article of clothing there (you know which one). These goals have high standards, are realistic and cover all aspects of your life. If you don’t think any of these will work, just bear in mind my successfully accomplished resolution from last year, which was to stop writing totally pointless, worthless and absurd articles. Thank goodness I’m still right on track.
Marty Reeder is a senior majoring in English education. Any comments or resolution, and/or revolution ideas can be sent to martr@cc.usu.edu.