"Smile, it's the end of the world."-Matthew Palath
21 December 2012. The day the poor misunderstood Mayans are accused of predicting to be the world's end. Anyone with half a will to investigate would find out that all they actually predicted the end of an era. They also did not account for the 514 leap years we've had in their calendars, the date their last rock ends on would actually have been some time in June. Or, as many a humorous cartoon relates,they merely ran out of space on their giant oreo cookies and everyone is being overly dramatic. I personally believe that if the Spanish hadn't wiped the Mayans out they would have finished their calendars
Despite all the predictions we did indeed survive the 21st and had Christmas after all. As the 31st approached, another misconception made a few people somewhat nervous. The popular movie 2012 made quite a few people think the end was nigh. What people seem to forget is that the world didn't actually end when the movie did. Everyone just somehow ended up in South Africa, where the Drakensburg and Cape Town somehow came together to create the perfect holiday destination. Really, that is not the end of the world.
Indeed it was not. Here we are on the first of January, alive and well. We survived 2012. I survived my first job, living in a boho cabin a minute from the beach, working as a photographer at a kid's camp 8 hours away from home. I survived living alone in a nice little granny flat. I survived my sister getting married and moving to Australia. I survived moving to Canada. I have almost survived my first winter.
We all survived apocalypse jokes and the sudden influx of zombie related everything. It was a close call, but we did survive the hashtag invasion on Facebook and the disturbingly large amount of fancy filtered photos of everyone's lunches,coffee mugs, feet and faces, thanks to Instagram.
Luckily, life is not all about merely surviving. In 2012 I completed three things off my bucket list. I went on an unpredictable trip, getting on a bus and then a metro train with only a vague idea of where I was going. I ended up getting a job and having, thus far, the very best time of my life living like a hippie in the small town of Zinkwazi in KwaZulu Natal. I was a camp counselor for a short while,then got promoted to photographer. I got paid to walk on the beach and take photos all day. While I was there I completed another item on my list: swimming to back-line. I could barely do anything but doggy paddle but one morning before the sun came up, four of my fellow counselors (three of which were life guards) and I walked down to the beach and plunged into the warm Indian ocean. As the sun came up, we reached back-line and floated in the now calm water. It was the most epic moment of my life.
In July, I ticked off the third item, Go to Canada, when we moved to Quesnel.
I made a huge amount of unlikely friends.We started a youth group at church. I got my L. I may be a driver yet.
Last night I built a puzzle with my mother and went to bed at 1. Not the most exciting New Year's, but I've never gotten very excited about the new year. it is, after all, just another new day. All the same, Happy New Year cyber space. :)
