New Year resolutions

2013, a new year. Why do we celebrate the new year in the middle of the year? And what is so new about it? For people who have always been involved in education, as pupils and students, and later as teachers and lecturers, the change of year takes place in the middle of the educational year. School years are planned from September to July. September being a new year, a fresh start, new faces, both of pupils and teachers, and colleagues. Why doesn't the new year begin in September, just after the summer holidays, or on the first day of Spring, or the day after the shortest day, December 20^th or 21^st?  At university budgets have to be ready before January 1^st. Funds are granted for a period of a calendar year, starting on January 1^st. Targets have to be met, money which hasn't been used, can't be saved for the next year when it may be badly needed, but is taken away. It is a peculiar system. For the new year is just a continuation of the year which began in September of the "old" year.

I have never felt any pressure to decide what I am going to change in the so-called New Year. All through the year I might promise myself to do better after I have failed, or said something wrong, or made a mess of things, or have had too much to eat or drink. After such a day or time I evaluate what went wrong, what changes I have to make, if any. Not especially on New Year's Eve or January 1^st. This also saves me the heartbreak of disappointment, as it is well-known that New Year Resolutions have a very short sell-by date, usually less than a week if statistics have any truth in them, and they are certainly forgotten at the end of January. Nevertheless I do use this slack time well. Christmas has come and gone, meals are frugal to make up for the bounty of December, there is no more singing, there are hardly any choir rehearsals nor Christmas concerts. There is no excitement over frozen canals, no feverish hope of skating on natural ice. It has been far too mild a  winter so far. However, there have hardly been any sunny days. Instead it has been dark and gloomy and wet for weeks, with only the minimum of daylight hours and very long and dark mornings and evenings. Now that I have taken down the Christmas lights and decorations, it seems even darker. Tracks are very muddy, so walking is no pleasure. Instead I have made the most of it and have cleared out kitchen drawers and wardrobes, and gone through piles of magazines. I have boxed things which I no longer need or never needed in the first place, ready to go to a second hand shop – or the dump. I have bought  matching containers which stack neatly in my kitchen cupboards, thrown away foodstuffs which were not in view and so had lived on my shelves for years and years. As the weather is still miserable, I may do some more clearing out and cleaning. No New Year resolutions for me, but boy, do I feel virtuous!