Happy New Year!

One of the sensible things that Jews do is put the new year at an appropriate time: in the fall. Maybe it's the years of ingrained pavlovian response after years of schooling, but there's something about the change of seasons from summer into fall that feels like a beginning. At least, it makes more sense than the break between cold and slightly colder that we get in January. A case could be made about springtime, but summer feels more like the reward, the dessert at the end of a year of brussel sprouts. I actually quite like brussel sprouts, but that isn't the point. Fall, more than any other season, feels like it's time to wake up and put your head back on your shoulders.

This fall, again, brings the promise of a new year. I successfully, albeit very poorly, defended my master's thesis a few weeks ago, and am free to start the phd with more or less a clean slate. My other projects are wrapping themselves up and soon will lead to a whole new set of challenges and other assorted fun.

Fall also brings me into my new room, in my new apartment. A room with the biggest window that stretches all the way across the long end, enough room for my comfy chair and my bed and my desk and enough room left over where I can spin around in my desk chair without touching anything. A room which has elicited the comments of "you're such a neat freak" and "I don't know many boys into decorating"--each so wrong and yet so awesome.

And most importantly, I guess, I enter fall a single man. I broke up with Dolly last week, after finally coming to terms with the fact that unfortunately I was never going to fall in love with her. I'm okay with it, having realized a while ago that I just wanted to be friends. Besides, this week I've been having more fun than any one person should be allowed to have, which is sort of like the cherry of top of this brussel sprouts of a year, if you know what I mean.

So I start September with a real clean slate and a stomach full of vegetables and candy. I think it's a good sign. I wish a sweet and happy new year for us all!