It's been fun

but now we're onto new things.

Better? Well, that's yet to be seen. But was 2008 really something that I can call bad? If everything is relative, can I really trust myself to accurately assess the quality of one year compared to another? I'm quite certain that as time goes on, you look back at things that have occurred quite differently. You forget the things that give you the overall experience. So, after it's over, saying something was good or bad is meaningless.

I don't mean this to be applied to everything in life, but there are certainly things that I can't look back on objectively and say conclusively was the best, or the worst, or anything like that. I can say it happened, but memories distort things. There's bias in everything. History books aren't going to give you the whole story. There's always another way of looking at the same story. Just as a friend to recall any incident to you. Chances are, it's going to sound a little different from your own recollection.

But as I see it from this point in time and my life, 2008 was a year for growth. The direction of that growth, as I said, is subjective.

I told myself that I would take the year to mold myself into a more "me" me. In some ways, I succeeded. There's still a lot of room for expanse on that front, too. Even more than the changes involved with getting out of the house, out of the country, I think that there was even more in the front of expanding self in 2008 than in 2007. New situations that I thought I would have been prepared for after the last year proved to be a completely different sort of challenge, and I'll continue to deal with this stuff from here on, too.

So, I can't say that I'm ready to face the future, or anything so bold as that, but I'm definitely willing to try. Maybe I can look at myself in a year from now and be a little more satisfied.

もっと自分らしくなりたい。

If people can be happy with themselves, maybe it will be ok.