Forewarning: This is largely a personal post. If you avoid those posts (as I normally do), then stop reading now.

1. Not sure if it has been a good year or a bad year. Certainly an odd year. Some of the ups and downs, and general occurences:

• Finishing my third year university team project. Though TwentyFour24 is now defunct, it’s the best distributed, topic-driven web crawler (I’ve worked on).
• Some excellent nights out. Evidence of some can be found on Derek’s gallery, evidence of others is buried and should stay that way. Of note were the CompSoc Karaoke, last years end of term, Jill’s 21st in the middle of nowhere, and the trip to Camden.
• My summer in Nottingham. Working for a great company, meeting new friends, seeing a fine city, going to some excellent clubs, doing some things I’m not proud of, enjoying some independence. Sure, it was supposed to be a year, but for various reasons the summer was what I wanted. A good time, in general.
• Pub Friday. The celebration every Friday of all things pub (or an excuse to drink). Also known as Chip Friday, Quiz Friday, No Hidden Weapons Friday, Queen Friday, and other things.
• The friends I keep. Made a lot of new friends (my phonebook has literally doubled in size this year), lost touch with several (for better and worse), and got to know most of my friends better.
• Recreating the charge of the light brigade the other night using only beer bottles and glasses with Derek while Matt looked on.
• Films. Great year for cinema and I enjoyed a lot.
• Some recent news about my future which I’ll not go into here, but perked me up.
• Joining a band again. How I missed drumming, and am enjoying getting better at it once more.

There are things missing from here, some more poignant and affecting than those listed, some more trivial from an outside perspective.

1. A year shaped by lots of changes.

Oh dear. It all went a bit wrong. House Of Flying Daggers could have been a great film. The premise (police hunting for the leader of a dissident sect) lends itself perfectly to be an impressive martial arts film with large and small scale battles between the two factions. Instead, the film focusses on the growing love between two characters on opposing sides.

The poor Romeo And Juliet plot is further let down by the twists: weak bluff after bluff after “Aha” after double bluff, not a single one enhancing the film at all.

The final act was particularly weak, with one of the two male characters being picked fairly arbitrarily as the villian and the plot meandering from there.

Dull, lengthy cinematics only gave way to one or two reasonable fight scenes. A shame.

How have you improved the world this year? Consider for a moment your place in the world. You almost certainly consume resources, but do you give the same amount back? Are you apathetic to those around you?

Maybe. You don’t have to deal with other people to change the world, to improve it in some small way. However, if you’re not actively trying to make it better, it is likely that you are passively destroying it.

Again, think about how you contribute to communities and society as a whole. List five ways that you make the world a better place (and please, leave out narcissistic reasons, you are not inherently good). Just list five ways that we are better off for having you around. Can you honestly do it? Why not?

A whole new year is coming. Think about how you can resolve that situation. Figure out your talents and skills, decide on the little things that you can do to improve the world, and then do them. As a thought experiment, this is only a brief curio. Action is what is needed. Action.

Garden State was surprising. Expecting a fairly lightweight comedy about a life going out of control, it was pleasant to actually be watching a film that was more than a passable script with some funny moments.

While the first few scenes are self-indulgent and overly sweet appetisers, the meat of the film is both tender and succulent. A boy, a girl, friends, and a trip home; it writes itself.

A plot synopsis does not do this film justice. See it. See it for the beautiful insight into a life that seems messed up enough to be real. See it for the old friends who seem to genuinely care beyond standard Hollywood “loyalty”. See it because it is genuinely funny. Just see it.

Apathy is a way of life now. How many times have you walked past the homeless, begging for change, with a shirk and slight fleeting shame? Far too many, I’d wager. Would it have killed you to give them a small amount? Probably not.

Apathy is becoming more apparent to me. At this time of year, of celebrations and over-indulgence, we either keep ignoring our fellow man or through them scraps of kindness to sate our own guilt.

You don’t even have to show respect for someone worse off than yourself, just help someone. Suggestions:

• Give someone you see begging or selling the Big Issue the time of day and a small donation. Honestly, if you’re reading this you can probably spare a quid, can’t you?
• Buy a CD you have downloaded. Anything at all you do not own, but have a copy of. You’ve probably got dozens to pick from. Buy at least one.
• Someone in a shop give you particularly good service over the rather frantic festive period? Let them know. Write their company a letter applauding their efforts rather than letting it slide. You’ll guarantee yourself a similarly high level of service later and probably make someone smile.
• Smile! Smile at a random stranger on a bus. You’re only burning calories but smiles are infectious little buggers.

I know that it is not likely anyone will do any of these things, but at least consider why you are not doing them or something similar. Why are you not looking out for everyone else? What does it say about you?