02 January 2006

On New Year's Day

New Year's is a hard holiday for me to accept. It's not because I prefer Chinese New Year's (January 29th marks the beginning of Chinese Year 4704, the Year of the Dog, or in other words, ldssingles.com) or even the French Revolution New Year's (celebrated on September 22nd, the day when Robespierre restarted the entire French calendar). It's not because I don't get hysterical about a glowing ball slowly descending a pole atop a skyscraper, which is clearly a relevant way to celebrate a new year. And it's certainly not because I think the words to "Auld Lang Syne" are really Nazi propaganda (which I do).

It is simply a matter of timing (man, how I hate those words).

Here in the good ol' U.S. of A., we have decreed that midnight officially marks the transition from one day to the next. Thus, when the clock strikes 12:00 am, (00:00 in crazy places such as the military or European countries) a new day has begun.

Jews and college students around the globe, on the other hand, officially begin their day when the sun goes down, which coincidentally, is when: #1) we'll be groovin' and #2) everything gets hotter.

For me, though, these artificial designations are counter-intuitive. My day lasts from the time I wake up until the time I fall asleep, regardless of how many hours that period of time may entail. (I realize that for some people, without mentioning any names, this would mean that they would have about 20 "days" in a 24-hour period. Stefanie.) For example, in my world it is still Sunday, January 1st. (Looking at my watch, Monday, January 2nd, will not begin until approximately 14:00 tomorrow.)

This way of telling time just makes more sense to me. It also helps me justify staying up so late. If only I could convince Krispy Kreme to stay open this late. Oh wait...

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not obtained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept
Were toiling upward in the night.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

me too russ because a lot of times, people say "happy new year" to me. happy new year??? what a slap in the face. it's hard sharing my own personal holiday with the rest of the world. even my birthday cake had candles that wrote out "happy new year." i guess even my own mother is slowly forgetting what the holiday is really about. when the clock chimes twelve, it used to represent that blessed day 22 years ago....
oh well. another day another dollar.

Stefani said...

Russ, I have to specify that the day begins when I wake up for keeps and ends when I fall asleep for keeps, disregarding any naps or narcoleptic episodes.