2010 is here! My resolution this year is to get back into writing. It’s been years since I have written actively, and I miss it. Nothing gets the thoughts organized better than putting them into words.
Lots of people are debating how we’ll say the date now that it’s 2010. There seems to be a slight division between people who want to say “two thousand ten” and those who prefer “twenty ten”. Personally, for the sake of consistency, I think the latter is the best choice. I mean in the 1900’s we didn’t say “one thousand nine hundred ninety nine”, we said “nineteen ninety nine”. It would only make sense then to call 2010 “twenty ten”. The problem is that during the last decade most people said, for example, “two thousand nine” or just “oh nine”, so we’re in the habit of saying it differently.
Hard to believe Y2K was a decade ago today. I remember how we all thought the nation’s power, water, etc., were going to shut down. Everyone had generators and tons of food stored. I have memories of filling up hundreds of jugs with water and storing them in our “Y2K room”. Lots of people thought it was the end of the world.
New years eve 1999, I sat by the TV, watching the festivities leading up to the ball drop. 11:59 came and we all held our breath…
…and nothing happened. The power stayed on. The water still worked. I was incredibly disappointed.
Being that I was only 12, the event kind of messed with my head. I saw my entire world panicking and thinking our civilization would crumble and we’d be back to ploughing fields and riding horses to the post office. When it didn’t happen and we were all left with tons of canned food we didn’t want to eat, I felt like I had just fallen for a huge joke played on everyone. I know it wasn’t like that, but I still felt like a fool for getting my hopes up; camping out with no power for months sounded like a grand adventure to me! I always wanted to live like a colonist, at least for a while.
But it was still an interesting experience, and a lot of fun up until the punch line.
I think 2010 will be an awesome year, and the start of an awesome decade. It will be interesting to see how the world crises play out. I hope you all have a wonderful new year. Much love.
Deeje