Retrospective... Towards the Future

I don't feel Christmas is coming. In the past years I'd be counting the months since September and the days since the 1st of December. Not now. I have to make myself get into the Christmas spirit. I find myself counting days for my friends and realizing, with their help, that there are only 12, not to say 11, days left. As I was saying before, I have to make it happen, if it won't come on it's own. I'm going to buy the Christmas tree this Saturday, for example. I'm also going to order the... cake that same day (I will never prepare that... how do you say "cozonac" in English :P ? ). Right now I'm going to attempt a retrospective of the past year... it has to be past, what else could happen in 17 days?
I began 2006 by dancing and enjoying myself... thought it would be a great year. At 12 o'clock, actually, we took part in a religious ceremony inside the church. Again, I thought this would make the new year special. The first days of January I lost "something". The next month, Ana told me that she wanted to go to Spain for a semester and almost forced me to come with her to enquire about the chances we had... it suddenly had become "we". I applied. I got accepted by Concordia after 5 days (they were trying to make up for... hehehe!). Oh, how could I forget? On the 30th of January I joined my first forum ever... Undernet Constanta; it was as close to home as I could get. I had to mention this, it occupied so much of my time :) ! March, April... school and forum (I'm freaking out as I'm writing... this year was baaad :))! Who made it that way? Not me, of course, of course :D ). In May I rediscovered the meaning of the word "friendship". On June 16 I received an e-mail from La Rioja University, saying that I had been accepted to study there for one semester. It's very possible that these two months were the highlight of the year. I had a lazy summer; again, school, forum, a bit of work, some outings... the end of the summer was the begining of now. I had to make a few choices... don't we always have to? The last months I tried to study; neah, I'm lying, I really didn't; I just got by. It was all for Spain, hadn't I taken at least 12 credits this semester, I couldn't have gone. Well, I took 15, since I'm so tough... lol. I just want to graduate as soon as possible, that's why I'm taking this course load. And it was fine, except for this semester. Hey, it's going to be better next time! I also worked as a Spanish Teaching Assistant, which meant a lot to me. Oh, yeah, the lab monitor thing, as well... lol. November... I have no idea what kind of month that was. Sometimes I think it was a malefic one, other times I say that it was a month of liberation. How can something present so many questions and problems and yet stay so strong? And then December hit... I lost again. So... I began and ended 2006 by losing almost the same "thing". At least no one can accuse me of being inconsistent.
But... it's over and done with. 2007 is on its way. Surprise! No resolutions this time. No losing weight, no quitting smoking or becoming a better person blahs. Nope... they never seem to work. I'll just take everything as it comes... or I won't; I still have this option, most of the time. This year might've been a bad one, but it changed me, maybe more than I would've wanted. I don't know anything about 2007... not even Spain is a certain thing, I don't have my visa yet. Nothing is for sure... almost nothing, ok. Change is omnipresent, that's for sure. And belief... optimism... no one can take that away from you, except for yourself.
It won't be better. It won't be worse. It will be what we let it be. It will be a good year. For everyone. This is not a wish I'm making... I just know it... I have to know it.