I am back! After what seems like a decade. Thanks to women, mild chest infestations and broken laptops my blogging progress has been hindered somewhat. So far, my Christmas holidays have been something of a washout as 3 days into my sojourn back home my laptop died on me and then my chests did. Yes. Not only did Vista descend into illness so did I. A bloody chest infection. On Christmas Day! I spent the night unable to sleep, having mild hallucinations and running cold sweats. On Boxing Day, despite feeling the worst I have ever felt, I ventured to see my beloved football team play the worst fucking 90 mins I have seen in my life. I sat there, watching a bunch of clueless footballers in freezing cold weather with a fever. Wonderful.

But this got me thinking. I've had some pretty shitty goings on throughout 2008 and it has potentially become one of the worst years I've had in living memory. Yes... I am going to say it, 2008 is the worst fucking year I've lived through. And here's why via monthly rundown of my misfortune with a handy rating system;

January: I suffer from depression, brought on by being single, having SAD and suffering from shit flatmates. 1/10

February: More depression, and exams. But on the plus side. I moved out of my previous flat with my shitty flatmates. 2/10

March: I make a complete dick out of myself at an Easter party, get drunk and lose my hat. 0/10 (Lowest of the fucking low)

April: I get into mild trouble with the English Language and Linguistics department after pissing off one of the academic staff (one of them responsible for that module was really nice, the other was a bit of a cow.) 1/10

May: I do my exams and finish all of them before everyone else and end up putting on a load of weight through doing nothing for three weeks. Also it rained heavily on the day of my Japanese exam. 5/10

June: Put on more weight and did jackshit during the holidays. Got angry with myself for not taking up that job offer in Okinawa. 4/10

July: Probably the highlight. But even then it was dull. Saw some of France and Belgium. Those are two dull countries. Nice beer though. 6/10

August: Found out I scrapped a 2.1 for my first year after my results dipped severely from the first semester. Also dumped a girl I was secretly seeing from May. 3/10

September: Finally see how bad my Japanese has gotten. But worked myself into a stupour and didn't bother going to the gym at all. Also my birthday was shit. 5/10

October: I broke my mobile phone and had to pay £60 to buy another one. 4/10

November: I worked, worked and worked some more. A truly productive month in terms of academic output, but nothing in terms of the social sadly. 4/10

December: Develop a chest infection, suffer from a broken laptop and are scared by the costs of summer travelling to Russia, China and Japan. Xmas party was also shit. 3/10

Overall 3/10. I would say 2007 was great, mainly because I made the majority of my good friends then. Everything was new for me, it was exciting and fresh. 2008 was full of depression, illness and disappointment. Only my friend Michiko's loving kindness and another special Japanese girl I have discovered kept me sane. Yes, if it wasn't for this beautiful Japanese temptress the last months of this year might have just been a washout. However there are still two more days left in 2008, so just enough time for her to tell me that I'm a creep and she wants nothing to do with me.

However, I work by the law of averages with things balancing themselves out proportionally over time. I think, I just think that 2009 will be my year given my crappy 2008. It will be a year that my goals will be complete and I might just get out of life what I wanted when I first thought about my experiences of studying Japanese at Uni. Maybe... just maybe.

Well if all that fails, I can just hope for karma in the shape of 2010, when Cappello leads England to World Cup glory in South Africa when we beat Japan 7-4 in the final. What? Okay... that will never happen. But you never know I might have some horrendous shit happen to me next year and God will definitely owe me some huge positive karma...

This week Richard is... recovering from a post-apocalyptic laptop, football, chest infection, lack of revision meltdown.