Since I've been back, the most common topic, or at least underlying tone, of almost every conversation I've had has been the dreaded recession which looms over the nation. Although I understand the seriousness of something like a long period of reduced spending and penny-pinching, I'm already fed up with everyone's serious faces and dreadful demeanor. I miss my old free-spirited school friends. I miss my parents' desire to get out of the house and do things. I miss the carefree nature of my friends in Tassie and their contentment with living in what some people would call squalor. Well I say "Fuck the recession. Viva la vie boheme!"

I'm sure people will get used to driving cars that are more than a year old. They'll adjust to being able to afford only two cups of Starbucks coffee a day, a week, a month. In time, no one will really miss expensive dinners out or staying in five-star hotels when traveling. We'll adjust. We'll pull through. And it would be a hell of a lot better if people would quit being so fucking gloomy about it!

And so, I resolve to keep a positive attitude, and I will do my best to pass that feeling of optimism to those around me. As Dale Carnegie wrote, "Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get."