December 31, 2003

The pleasant change in the weather combined with the delicious duck and wine I had last night at Wellhauser’s World Peace dinner did wonders for my mental well being. I’m feeling so good that I decided to take an egoistical and self-indulgent look at the events that happened in my life during the last 12 months. This being the last day of the year, it seems mildly appropriate that I should try to put everything in perspective.

January: I don’t think I was feeling awfully sane at the beginning of 2003 when I showed up to receive the Flora Roy scholarship. The Dean’s office asks all recipients to write a short blurb about themselves so that Dean Campbell has something nice to say when students go up to pick up their awards. Here’s what he said about me before roughly 300 people:

After four years of intense literary analysis and a death on his conscience, Tudor realized that he’s really a monster. Luckily, he also realized that he can obscure this and many other truths about himself by producing an endless amount of noise. Thus, by living a life of outward ecstasy and inner agony, Tudor hopes to reach a blissfully psychotic dissociation from the world. And then he’ll finally be sedated.

I seem to have lost my sense of humour together with my sanity. My blurbs in previous years were a lot more entertaining.

February: Sex, power, and politics combined in fascinating ways at the beginning of February in my Election Erection campaign. I need to do something to regain my sanity, so I engaged in political discourse and tried to add a new perspective to student politics. Even though I lost the election, it was an intense and enjoyable experience, and I wrote a three part series documenting my campaign for PhysComp.org.

March: Another bout of pleasant depression ensured that no essays got written in March. Once things slowed down after the election campaign, I found myself unable to either think or write anything coherently. This eventually resulted in my first failed university course — 17th Century Literature.

At the same time I picked up an award for leading the PhysComp club on brave new paths — PhysComp was my baby that year.

April: April was a grim month, and not just because of the exams. But the month ended on a fairly good note as I once more ran into the infamous David Wellhauser at a PIRG BBQ. Almost everyone wore red.

May & June: School was a blast in late spring. I once more felt intellectually stimulated by the amazing people in my class, and I even went on a road trip to Stratford with my Shakespeare class.

At the end of June I somehow ended up in Virginia. Spending 12 hours on the road gives you plenty of time to think. I went swimming in the ocean at night and fluorescent bubbles floated all around me — beauty was even in the darkness of the ocean. That night changed me: it convinced me to once more push everything to the limit.

July: I came back to Waterloo in July eager to fly around the sun once more. I lost friends and made friends, and by the end of the summer I jumped naked from cliffs, climbed up sheer walls of rock and felt amazingly sane. I came to realize that Elora is a wonderful place, and that people, if you let them, will surprise you.

August: At the end of August I went to my first Death Metal concert in Guelph. By the end of the night we only had enough money to get to the edge of Kitchener. I remember walking for most of the night to get home.

September: School started and everybody was back in town so Jason and I organized a Cornfest in the quad. Our celebration of harvest was delicious. It felt incredibly weird to be back at WLU for a fifth year.

October: I joined the Debating Society and I realized that I loved arguing about everything. Because of debating I got to go to all sorts of crazy places, and in the process I met some interesting people.

It was on one of the debating trips that the idea for WLUExposed took flight. WLUExposed was supposed to be a truly provocative publication, touching material that other publications wouldn’t go near, and everybody seemed eager to contribute. Unfortunately, people’s enthusiasm was short lived and WLUExposed.org went into hibernation a month later.

November: I launched my blog in an attempt to collapse the boundaries between public and private. This was the month when I fell quickly and violently for a girl and finished dead fucking last in my last debating tournament.

December: In December I began my process of Gothification, had my first smoke in 13 years, started thinking about politics, and caused my close friend to lose his mind.

And this brings us back to the present moment. Twelve months later I’m back where I started: I’ve grown a little wiser, but also stupider in many ways. Let’s see where the next 12 months take me …