New Year 2000

A remembrance from January 2000

No crazy New Years' incidents happened here. Some friends and I quietly
celebrated the New Year with good conversation and fresh fruit. There was
a minor melee in Pasadena, with a fire in the street and people throwing
bottles, but my crew went around it. There were tons of people filling
the streets (around the Rose Parade route). We took pictures of the cops
in riot gear going in to take the revellers down. I suppose people wanted
their money's worth regarding this end of the world deal.

The next day, I played "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius" and we
danced around the Great Fire throwing in all our memories from the past
profligate era, to purify ourselves for the New Age, whose birth pangs are
even now being felt.

Okay, so we just went to IHOP the next day (how cosmic, huh?), no Great
Fires. But my oat bran pancakes seemed to have great religious
significance, a symbol of the cycles of creation, degradation and
regeneration. All high in fiber.

Seriously,

I understand the morbid hope for chaos. I hoped something would happen to
forestall the coming year with all its academic demands. As a kid, before
a dreaded day would come (like having to hand in a term paper or give a
speech in class), I would hope for some disaster to disturb the status
quo. This was my immature attempt to gain perspective on things. My
stupid assignments seemed like nothing compared to DISASTER! All the more
now. But I don't hope for disasters like I used to. I just accept them
as they come, as crises have seemed ever more frequent lately and God's
given me the strength to live through them.

Regarding crises, a useful question I began asking myself a year ago was "What would shatter your
faith?" If the answer is anything more than "nothing," watch out...you
just might get tested. Correction, you WILL be tested. I was.

I'm going to face a tribunal of professors in my department in two weeks.
I'm a first year grad student, if you remember, in a dept. with the scary
name of "Control and Dynamical Systems" whose meaning and ultimate goal
still elude me and most world governments. I've been so lame the past
week, I haven't studied at all. It's called a "qualifying exam," to see
if you're worthy to go on with the PhD candidacy and start your thesis.
I have to be well versed in the art of applying mathematics and I just
haven't been motivated since Christmas break. I've got to study and need
motivation.

If I don't pass, I'll have to march on into obscurity and open a cafe in
the middle of the Mojave desert, near Joshua Tree. The place will be a
community center for the psychos, UFO seekers, conspiracy theorists, and
other assorted desert people afflicted with the "desert madness." It
seems like a fine Plan B, doesn't it? I'd hope to expand it into an
artist colony so other struggling artists like myself can be inspired by
the desert's barren serenity. Hey, it worked for Jesus (remember those 40
days in the desert...).