The Inevitable New Year’s Post

So here it is, New Year’s Eve, and once again, for the fourth straight year in a row, I am NOT writing out a hateful, spite-filled mass e-mail that insults all my friends and indulges in my once a year explosion of venom and envy over the fact that they are happy and I am not.

Having been with the Wife now for four years (although this was the first as a married couple) I can safely say that the jealousy I experienced over the happiness my friends had being with someone is long dead and gone.

So this is about something else entirely. I already got a chance to write the GameAxis editorial page, the first and last time I will likely to do that, and it’s simply because it was my chance to say goodbye to magazine and its readers in my capacity as the main staff writer. But one of the things that I mentioned in the editorial is that this particular New Years that is being rung in (at least, in this time zone, obviously Canada has yet to experience it) is that I’m very much living the typical cliche for this time of year; that being out with the old and in with the new.

2006 is my last year in Singapore. After just over 10 years, the island that I more or less landed on by whim and accident is finally being left behind with one Wife, two cats, many, many books, comics, CDs, DVDs, games and one plastic guitar. 2007 becomes my first year in Canada after all this time. It kind of floors me to think that I have never, ever set foot in my own home country since the new millennium dawned on us. When I left, the internet barely existed, DVDs didn’t at all and there was no such thing as an online transaction or free communication via online cams, headsets or instant messaging systems. Blogs didn’t exist. iPod didn’t exist and people still had carry around either a portable CD or tape player if they wanted to listen to their music collections. Global Positioning Systems weren’t available to the mass market and Starbucks, Wal-Mart and other big American conglomerates had yet to set foot on Canadian turf (at least, in Edmonton, where I lived).

Now, in this new year, not only do I have a different part of the country, a different city to adjust to, but a different kind of lifestyle entirely. I left Canada as a university graduate and come back to it as a writer who’s done just about everything you can with the English language for money. I come back to a country far more technologically advanced than it was when I left it, and I come back with some pets and, most importantly, a Wife.

So while the New Year is certainly filled with a lot of unknowns, there’s a lot of excitement and promise, even in the midst of the uncertainty. And, as schlocky and disgusting as it sounds, I’m not at all scared or massively worried about what the future will hold, because after being away from Canada for so long, and being in a country where free speech, other political parties or even pornography simply don’t exist… I have a lot more appreciation for what Canada has to offer. Especially to people in the creative industries. In Canada, you don’t have to worry that what you say will get you arrested, you only have to worry about whether it’s good or not. Trust me, that doesn’t seem like a big thing, but after having had to butt heads with the Singapore government in one form or another over the last couple of years, believe me, it really DOES color your point of view about what to say or not say when you know that you may pay for it in a very Official Capacity. It will be nice to know in Canada when you say something that is true, no one in the government can arrest, fine, or otherwise harrass you for it.

The other thing of course is the Wife. We have a good thing going and I really, truly love her a lot. Tons even. And everything seems bearable or even conquerable as long she’s around. And no matter whether things get very good, or very bad, or merely very complicated, all of these things are easier to live through with her beside me. And more fun too. And I’m looking foward to seeing what happens with her when we get to Toronto. For me, it is a home coming, and even though Toronto is unfamiliar, Canada with its cold, its creativity and its very, very unAmerican sanity and compassion, is not. Everything will be new to her, and I’m interested in seeing what Canada will be like through her eyes as she experiences so many firsts, like, unfortunately, snow and sub-zero temperatures.

Of course it won’t be easy, but then is any kind of positive change ever a walk in the park? There will be new things to get used to, she will have to adjust to being a very busy artist, and I still have a few projects that are brewing which I can’t yet talk about, but hopefully those will keep me very, very busy in 2007. And also extremely happy and geeky. So I dunno whether 2007 is going to be a better year than 2006, but it certainly is going to be a LOT different. And perhaps more fun.

So that’s it. My final New Year’s Eve in a place where you can actually break into an unpleasant sweat while standing around outside during the countdown because of the stifling heat and humidity.

And as for those of you not in Singapore, well, Happy New Year in advance. This’ll be the last time I beat you to it…